


Someone to Vote No

by staringatthesky



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Het Relationship, Drama, F/M, Family, POV Female Character, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatthesky/pseuds/staringatthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rewrite of New Moon from Rosalie's POV.<br/>"This is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me."</p><p>Because there was so much more behind Rosalie voting no than Bella ever knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Arctic- Now.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N- I thought my Twilight rewrite from Rosalie's POV was going to be a one off writing experiment…turns out Rosalie got under my skin and had a lot more to say! So I decided to go ahead and work with the material of New Moon.
> 
> This fic will be canon, as far as it goes. Obviously the Cullens were absent for months in New Moon and Rosalie really only turned up to be a bitch about Bella being dead in Alice's vision (I shall try and make that work, although I admit I kind of adore Rosalie and keep making excuses for her). All the New Moon events will be in this fic, but I'm also playing with some of Rosalie's backstory so there will be a lot more Cullens and hardly any Bella at all.

I carefully placed another block of ice in place and then smoothed a handful of snow over the top, adding more and packing it tightly between the blocks to fill in any gaps. The brilliant light from sun reflecting of the ice and snow all around me made the diamond sparkle from my own vampire skin almost unnoticeable, apart from the occasional refraction throwing rainbows onto the ice palace taking shape in front of me. I frowned in thought, and then examined the jumbled pile of ice blocks scattered on the snow nearby until I settled on several the right size and shape. Hefting them into my arms I leaped lightly up on to the boulder I was using as a stepladder and pressed the ice together to form the top of the doorway arch. Perfect.

Working quickly I built the rest of the wall, jamming snow into the gaps and smoothing it out. I was close to completing it when I heard an animal bellow and, turning, saw the huge bull walrus heaving himself out of the sea. He bellowed again and took off galloping across the ice, astonishingly quickly for such an ungainly looking beast.

Without a second thought I leaped off the boulder and bounded after him, jumping sideways as he lunged at me with his four foot long ivory tusks then somersaulting over him and landing on his back. Without giving him a chance to react I tore into his neck, my teeth slicing through the thick layer of fat as I grimaced in distaste before being rewarded with the thick rush of blood as I found an artery.

Suddenly arms like iron bands wrapped around my body from behind and I felt teeth on my neck as someone whispered hoarsely in my ear, “That’s mine.”

I took my mouth away and turned my head to smile at Emmett, the arterial spray from the walrus hitting him full in the face as I did so. “Share with me,” I whispered, and with a rumble of pleasure Emmett pushed his body full length against mine and moved his head to fasten his mouth onto the body of the beast he’d chased from the sea. I licked the blood trail from his ear across his cheek, down to his lips which he loosed from the flesh of the animals just enough to kiss me. Then we were together, kissing and feeding at the same time, the blood hot and slick between us. It was messy and wild and elemental somehow, this mix of greed and lust, as if we had lost touch with our human side out in this frozen wonderland.

Between us Emmett and I drained the walrus and lay back on the dazzling white earth, full and slothful. Emmett reached forward and snapped off the tusks and then kicked the body so it shot across the ice, far into the distance. I wondered lazily if it would attract any carrion feeders, and thought wistfully of the polar bears we’d once hunted and fed on before they became a threatened species.

Emmett nuzzled into my neck, licking at the blood streaked across my skin. “And you say I make a mess with my food,” he mumbled, his hand tracing the red streaks across my chest and belly.

“Filthy savage,” I murmured in response, my own fingers touching the remains of our meal spread liberally over Emmett’s chin. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

He laughed, and groaned as he sat up and stretched. “At least we didn’t have clothes on this time.”

I nodded. Out here in the arctic tundra, with nobody within thousands of miles to see us and vampire bodies that were impervious to cold, nakedness felt like the natural state of being. Better for swimming, better for sliding on the ice, no clothes to tear or mess up when hunting and feeding, no clothes to get in the way of my full enjoyment of Emmett’s magnificent body…once again I felt a throb of desire deep in my belly as I looked at the man I almost worshipped, even with skin smeared and hair matted with blood as he was.

“Come on baby doll,” Emmett said, rising to his feet and holding out his hand. “I want to show you something.”

I scrambled to my feet. Emmett threw the tusks in his hand like darts at my ice palace, where they embedded themselves deep in a block of ice, and then took my hand and led me over to the edge of the ice. “We need to swim.”

I dove in after him, kicking hard to catch up. Streaking through the beautiful clear blue water I caught glimpses of silvery fish flashing past, and further away the darker and more indistinct shadows of larger marine animals. I swam up alongside Emmett and gripped his shoulders, letting him tow me through the water while I enjoyed the view of this underwater world.

I wondered where he was taking me. He’d been out in the water for hours before hunting the walrus up onto our iceberg, so it could have been anywhere. It was not too long though before I began hearing the telltale squeals and clicks, and Emmett’s swimming slowed as he began to move towards the sounds. Finally we saw them, a pod of orcas, their sleek black and white skin shining in the water as they swam close to the surface.

For a long moment Emmett and I floated, suspended in the water, just watching the beautiful animals moving peacefully through their underwater world. They were apex predators in the ocean and did not sense the very real threat that Emmett and I could be to them if we chose to be, although still replete from our earlier feeding I knew that hunting was not what Emmett had in mind. He flashed me a grin and then shot suddenly upwards and I heard his gleeful shout as he broke the surface and somersaulted through the air, diving back in beside one of the magnificent whales. That started the game he had brought me here to play, and for some time I thought of nothing but my own joy in my physical abilities and the wonder of these enormous whales as they breached the surface alongside me and chased me through the blue depths. 

Eventually the pod moved southwards, and Emmett and I reluctantly watched them disappear. Once they were gone I fitted myself into Emmett’s arms, wrapping my legs around him, and he kissed me slowly as our joined bodies rolled through a dizzying swirl of blue water and golden sunlight, before turning and swimming slowly back to shore.

The two of us didn’t speak as we slipped out of the water. I went back to creating my miniature ice palace, and Emmett tugged the walrus tusks free and sat down at a distance to use his teeth and fingernails and old hunting knife to carve them. Playing with the whales, wild and free in their natural habitat, had touched me deeply. I rarely felt fully comfortable with what I was, but it was my vampire skills and senses that had made that experience possible and that enchanting game with the beautiful orcas had been like a gift.

I filled in the small gaps between my ice bricks and then mounted the ice gargoyles that Emmett had carved for me with skill and flair, before standing back to examine my creation. It rose before me, sturdy stone arches supporting the curved roof topped with delicate towers, my perfect ice cathedral in miniature glittering and shining in the sunlight. I smiled just at the sight of it, this ridiculous creation that was both fragile and strong, with little point other than its own beauty.

I’d been so engrossed in admiring my work that I was almost startled when I felt the hard point of a walrus tusk tracing the line of my spine.

“Hey beautiful girl.” Emmett was by my side, golden eyes meeting mine with a smile. “I made you something.”

He held out the tusk he’d been working on, and as I took it and saw the intricate carvings along the full four foot length of it I couldn’t help my exclamation of surprise and pleasure. He’d formed it into the orca pod, and amongst the detailed whale bodies there were two mermaids, a male and female. “Oh Emmett…it’s wonderful!”

He grinned at me, twirling the other tusk in his fingers like a baton. “It was just so incredible out there earlier; I wanted to make this for you so you’ll always remember it.”

“As if I could forget.” I took his hand and then ducked my head under the doorway arch to enter my palace, pulling him behind me. “Come on.”

Inside it was tall enough for even Emmett to stand upright. Light streamed in through the arched window frames along the sides, reflecting from a thousand crystal surfaces of snow and ice and vampire skin, throwing glittering rainbows on ceiling and walls and floor. It felt like a sacred space, like ancient magic, and for a long moment Emmett and I stood motionless.

“You’re fucking amazing, Rosa girl,” Emmett breathed at last, and his eyes grew dark with desire as he looked at me. “The things you can do…this place is like something out of a fairy tale, and you’re the ice queen.” His fingers twitched and I could tell he wanted to touch me, but there was something about this place that held him back. My hands had built it and it was my place, and I would be the one to say what could happen here.

I brushed my hands through my hair and watched him, looking at the beautiful body I knew almost better than I knew my own. _Mine, mine, mine._ I watched him grow hard, saw the tenseness in his hands and shoulders as he held himself still and waited for me, and marvelled at what I could do to this man without even touching him. The power I held over his body was only the smallest part of that, it was the open and trusting way he had given me power over his heart that meant more to me than anything. “Emmett…my own.”

I went down on my knees before him and took him into me, hearing him groan and feeling his hands fist in my hair and the tremble in his thighs under my hands. _Love you, want you, need you._ I took him to the brink and then drew back, then did it again until he dropped to his knees and crushed me against him, his mouth on mine and his hands holding me ever closer as he begged me, “Rosa, please baby, now…love you Rosa girl, please…” I slid down on his lap and in one move sheathed him with my body and then we were moving together, face to face, and I didn’t know where I ended and he began as we took each other to the edge and then fell, with a shout and a sob, through the shuddering waves of pleasure and desire and release.

 Afterwards we lay together, still joined, me still moving slightly just because I never wanted this wild and beautiful togetherness to end. Emmett held me close and breathed in the scent of my hair, his hands moving in slow circles on my skin.

“I’m so glad we came here,” he said quietly, and his eyes looked at me with an unusual intensity. “You’re so fucking beautiful here in the sunlight baby doll, and you don’t let me see you like this at home.”

I nuzzled into his chest and rocked my hips in a slow and almost imperceptible rhythm. “It’s different here.” I tried to gather my thoughts, flashing back over the weeks we had spent alone, naked and free in this frozen world. Remembering hours swimming without breathing, exploring crystal caves and icy crevasses that appeared to lead to the centre of the earth, making love without any thought to noise or destruction, hunting and feeding on the walruses and seals and whales that were so plentiful here, and I smiled. “It’s…easier. I’m not trying to be something I can never quite be here,” I said at last. “We do a good job at playing human Emmett, but we’re never going to quite manage it. We do a good job at playing vampire too, but with our diet we’re never going to quite manage _that_ either…here, when it’s just you and me...well, we’re not trying to be anything other than ourselves.”

Emmett ran his fingers tenderly over my mouth, and I knew he understood what I was saying, even if he himself didn’t suffer from any feelings of inadequacy over his many pretensions in the real world. “That’s all we ever need to be, Rosa girl. Ourselves. This is what we are angel, and as long as we’re together it’s the best thing in the world we could be.”

He rolled on top of me, pushing deeper inside me as I opened my legs even more to welcome him. I closed my eyes as the ever present spark between us caught and burned, and the pleasure mounted once again as he moved within me, hands tangled in my hair and lips murmuring  once again of his endless love. I came all too soon, almost whimpering with the intensity of it as Emmett hoarsely shouted my name and shuddered as his body was rocked with his own climax.

“I will never have enough of you,” I whispered passionately, loath to release him from my arms. “Never Emmett…I want you always.”

“Oh god baby doll, you are my world!” Emmett buried his face in my neck and sucked, tasting me with his tongue and teasing me with his teeth. “You know that. Sometimes I wish we could just stay out here for the next hundred years…maybe that would be enough time for me to love you and fuck you and be with you without any distractions!”

The unspoken hung between us then, and I sighed and said reluctantly. “We can’t stay though…that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? It’s time to go home.”

Emmett’s fingers gently began untangling my hair. “Sorry babe, but yeah. I’ve kind of lost track of time while we’ve been gone but I checked the sat phone earlier and it’s September already. I promised Edward we’d be back by Bella’s birthday.”

I pouted, but there was no real feeling behind the gesture and Emmett chuckled as he looked at me. “I know you miss them all too.”

“Maybe a little bit,” I conceded. Emmett and I had left Forks almost immediately after graduation, and with our travels through Africa and then our weeks roaming the Arctic tundra it had become a more prolonged trip than we had originally planned. “It will be good to see the family again.”

I didn’t mention Bella, and Emmett didn’t pursue the subject either. It was not something we talked about anymore. After the incident with the vampire James in the previous spring, I no longer felt any great antipathy to Bella Swan. I still believed to the bottom of my heart that she posed a great threat to the safety of our family and I resented her casual inclusion in family matters but it was not exactly a personal dislike anymore. I was impatient with her clumsiness and scornful of what I perceived as her weakness, but so far she had betrayed no trust and even I had to concede that she had been a good influence on Edward, who was happier with her in his life than he had ever been. It was the future that troubled me most now, because for me there was no possible happy ending for Bella and Edward and I did not want to deal with the fallout from the inevitable implosion.

Most of these thoughts I kept to myself now. The family knew how I felt, and I knew that their knowing changed nothing. Alice still saw Bella becoming one of us, although when and how that might happen was unclear, and Edward was still adamant that Bella would remain human. In that stalemate Bella had become a part of the family, and if that sat uneasily with me then it was my issue to deal with.

It felt odd that Edward was the one who came closest to understanding my feelings on Bella’s potential transformation. Although our reasons were different and we had reached our conclusions by very different routes, both Edward and I saw our vampire existence as much as a curse as a blessing, and it was not something we would wish for anyone else. Oh, I knew how hypocritical that sounded, when I had forced the change for my beloved Emmett and had kept him standing staunchly by my side in all his immortal vampire glory ever since. Easy for me to say _now_! All I could offer in my defence was that my feelings as a vampire of eighty years’ experience were very different to that of the hysterical vampire baby I’d been back then, and what was done could never be undone. 

The others already considered Bella part of the family, whether she was human or vampire. Alice adored her and had found in Bella the best friend she’d always wanted and the sister I’d never quite been. Esme was so delighted with the in-love-version of Edward that she was easily able to brush aside any qualms, and Carlisle too approved of anything that made his children as happy as Bella had made Edward. Jasper had his own reservations, and his struggle to resist the call of the blood when it was so near and sweet had not eased with the months, but anything that made Alice happy made him happy. He and I had not talked about it, but I suspected that he would now strongly favour a future in which Bella was a vampire and her humanity no longer an issue for him.

Emmett was happily intrigued by her. She was one of the few humans he’d ever been close to who wasn’t instinctively afraid of him, and he found her humanness and unexpected reactions hilarious. He was almost like a big dog with a kitten, sniffing at it in an attempt to understand what it was and poking at it to see if it could be made to scratch. It was a situation I tolerated but did not like, and the truth was it had been a relief to leave them all behind after graduation and escape with only Emmett.

I sighed as his strong fingers massaged my scalp and tugged gently through my hair. “Home…it will probably feel quite strange after being alone for so long.” I rubbed my hand across Emmett’s chest and giggled. “We’ll have to put clothes back on!”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Emmett winked lasciviously at me. “Seems a shame to cover all that up! Makes it much harder to play with…” he reached out and then snorted as I slapped his hands away. “Aww, baby doll!”

I laughed, and got to my feet. “No point in delaying the inevitable then I suppose. Come on my man, let’s go home.”

I collected the possessions we had scattered about our campsite, not that there was much. A set of clothes each that we shook out and pulled on, the satellite phone and solar battery recharger, a Scrabble game and chess set, a hairbrush, an e-reader, Emmett’s iPod, and the carved walrus tusk Emmett had made for me. Emmett made sure he had his knife with the compass set into the bone handle, the one relic of his human life that he had kept with him through the years, and scooped up the plain tusk, slashing it through the air like a fencer.

I paused in front of my ice palace. I had made it because I enjoyed the process of building it rather than because I had any strong feelings for the finished creation, but as I looked at it sparkling in front of me and saw the juxtaposition of its fragility and strength I did not want to destroy it.

“You should leave it,” Emmett spoke up, as he knelt beside me lacing up his boots. “You did such a great job making it.”

“You know we don’t leave any evidence behind,” I said quietly, but I didn’t make a move towards destruction.

Emmett stood and wrapped his arms around me. “It won’t matter,” he said softly. “Not way out here…who is there to see it but the animals? Even if someone did see it, well, I think the world is a whole lot more interesting with a few mysteries in it. It will melt, or get snowed under or something eventually, I guess, but I want to walk away knowing it’s still here. I want to remember my beautiful Rosa girl in her beautiful diamond palace and the way you looked in the sunlight.” He gave me a half embarrassed smile and kissed me again, and without speaking we turned and walked away.


	2. Forks- September.

For our kind, travelling from the northern edge of the world back down through Alaska and Canada to our home in Forks, Washington, was not a particularly challenging task. Emmett and I ran through the night until we reached Denali, where our ‘cousins’ made their home. When we had decided to extend our travels to include an Arctic vacation Emmett had made arrangements to have his Jeep sent to Denali in readiness for our return. Of course we could have run home easily, but the Jeep was convenient and fun and both Emmett and I were always up for off-roading adventures when the opportunity was there.

Alice had foreseen our return and was waiting for us on the steps when we reached home, Jasper lounging alongside her and Carlisle and Esme standing on the porch behind. She flitted down and tore open the mud caked, dented door of the Jeep, jumping in and hugging me before I could even step down.

“We’re so glad you’re home!” she beamed, and reached across for Emmett, who enveloped her in one of his big bear hugs. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too,” I said honestly, pushing her out of the vehicle and slipping down after her. I hugged her again once we were on solid ground, feeling the familiar slight body and breathing in her scent. Emmett and Jasper pounded each other on the back and punched each other on the arms a few times in a typical display of affection that made both Alice and I roll our eyes and smile. I hugged Esme and then Carlisle took me in his arms and kissed my forehead.

“Welcome back my dear,” he said sincerely, looking at me in satisfaction. He and Emmett shook hands, and then hugged each other as well. “It’s wonderful to see you both again.”

Esme took my hand and squeezed it lovingly. “It’s not the same without all of you here! I did miss you Rose…and the Mercedes has been making an odd noise and I don’t have another mechanic I trust!” she added with a laugh, and I couldn’t help but laugh back. It _was_ good to see my family again, these people who knew me so well and loved me despite everything.

“I’ll look at it for you as soon as I can,” I promised, hearing Emmett ask Carlisle where Edward was.

Alice threw me a quick look. “He’ll be home later,” she said lightly. “We’ve not been seeing as much of him lately either, which is making for a very quiet house I must say! No Edward playing the piano all day, no Emmett smashing things, no Rosalie and Edward fighting…no overhearing Rose and Emmett sexy times echoing through the house at all hours of the day and night!” she finished with a wink as she skipped out of Emmett’s reach. “It’s taken some getting used to!”

I made a face at her. “Insults and taunts…I thought I’d have to wait for Edward before I heard those.” Too happy being back with my family to be upset, I shook my head. “Perhaps I’ll keep your presents for myself!”

 “You know I’m only teasing,” Alice slipped her hand in mine and towed me into the house. “And I do love what you bought me.”

No surprises for Alice of course, but both she and the others were happy with the trinkets and gifts Emmett and I had picked up in our travels. We told them briefly of our adventures and then I excused myself and went up to my room.

Alone, I placed the carved walrus tusk on the mantelpiece, noticing afresh the details Emmett had included in his creation. I saw the notched dorsal fin on the big bull and the trio of babies and knew that he had given me the exact pod of orcas that we had played with.

I showered and, for the first time in weeks, dried and styled my hair, feeling the mask slip back into place as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Not just Emmett’s Rosa anymore. No more of the angel free to love and play and live in the sunshine. Not here. Instead I drew my Cullen pendant out of the jewellery box and fastened the chain around my neck and became again the Rosalie Hale Cullen that my belonging here needed me to be.

When I went downstairs I found that Carlisle had been called back to the hospital and was gone. Jasper and Emmett were sprawled in the living area watching television and talking animatedly, Emmett with the laptop in front of him and the sports pages on the screen as he caught up on all the summer sport results he’d missed out on. Esme and Alice were seated at the kitchen table, wrapping paper, scissors and tape in front of them as Alice wrapped some packages. I joined them.

“Bella’s birthday,” Alice said in explanation. “It’s tomorrow.”

“Emmett wanted to be back for it,” I said, examining the plane tickets that Esme had bought for Bella. A trip to Florida, to see her mother.

“We’re going to have a party!” Alice was bright eyed with excitement. “A real birthday party Rose! We haven’t had one of those since…well, ever actually.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Well, considering that the last time any of us actually aged a year was back in 1935 with Emmett, is it that surprising?”

Edward suddenly materialised at my shoulder, smiling in amusement. “Alice, you know what Bella thinks about all this. Please restrain yourself.” He bent and kissed my cheek lightly. “Rosalie. Welcome home.”

I smiled in return, a little warily. He smelled like Bella, and after weeks of no human contact at all even that little scent made my venom run. “It’s good to see you Edward.”

“Edward!” Emmett’s voice boomed through the room and he flashed across and tackled Edward with enthusiasm. The two of them went down with the noise of crashing boulders, a kitchen chair snapping into a pile of matchsticks under the weight, and Emmett’s laugh rang out. “Christ, you were supposed to stop me…when have I ever been able to take you by surprise? Wake up brother! Look what you made me do…sorry Mom!”

Esme made an angry face, but no one could take it very seriously. We all knew how she loved seeing ‘her boys’ playing as brothers, and kitchen chairs were not that hard to replace. “I know you’re pleased to see each other, but not in the house, thank you!”

Edward pushed Emmett off him, sending him skidding halfway across the kitchen, and the two of them got to their feet. “Emmett, it’s a joy as always,” Edward laughed, and ducked as Emmett reached out to scruff his hair.

Alice pushed a box across the table towards me. “I didn’t know if you’d get back in time, so I helped Jasper pick out a gift for Bella from him, Emmett and you. I’m going to wrap up the box, and keep it out to have one of you install it while she’s here with the truck.”

It was a car stereo, the same one I’d put in Edward’s Volvo last year. I shrugged, and extracted it from the box. “Emmett can do it. He knows how.” I slid the box back to Alice and watched her wrap with dexterity. “So what exactly do you have planned for this party?”

Emmett kissed my neck as he dropped into the seat beside me. “Party for Bella’s birthday? Awesome.”

Edward frowned as he bundled the remains of the shattered chair into the trash can. “Nothing too elaborate please Alice. You know Bella’s feelings on the matter.”

“She’s just being difficult,” Alice said dismissively. “It’s her birthday! Besides, I’m _not_ doing anything excessive. Just a little party at home, with presents and cake. Just family. Hardly a party at all really! Nothing Bella can object too…well, nothing Bella really _should_ object too anyway.” She ran a fingernail along the ribbon tying her package and it sprang into a perfect curl.

“Cake,” Emmett sighed wistfully. “You know there’s not too much I miss, but cake…I could go back for that.”

The rest of them laughed, and I briefly pressed my shoulder against his arm before rising from the table and moving into the living area. I knew the way things lay, and I would hold my tongue and not make more trouble than could be avoided, but that human girl was _not_ my family.

It felt, for a while that night, as though Emmett and I had never left and all the events of last spring had never happened. As if Bella Swan had never happened.

There was no underlying tension as my family moved through the hours of darkness this time, just a deep contentment in being together again. People came together to talk and laugh and play and then moved away again, finding someone else, catching up on what had been happening, feeling whole and sure and strong again to be with our own. That was what this family did for us all…gave us a place of complete acceptance, of being and knowing without lies and secrets, something that was worth more than all the money and wealth stocked away in our vaults.

That night it all felt so easy. Edward on the piano, humming and happy. Emmett and Jasper playing chess and teasing Edward, egging each other to be ruder and more outrageous until it ended in the inevitable wrestling match, complete with gales of laughter and shouts from Esme as she implored them to take it outside. Esme and Alice decorated the living room in shades of pink and white, flowers and candles and then a cake they had laboured over. On his return from the hospital Carlisle read some new medical journals, and then somehow got roped into the boys’ games and all four of them ended up in the yard, hurling each other about and roaring.

I shared all the news from our cousins in Denali with Carlisle, and then went out to my beloved garage to work. The ‘funny noise’ from Esme’s Mercedes turned out to be a simple fix, but the Jeep Emmett and I had hammered home through the Canadian wilderness was another matter completely. I’d half dismantled it before having to concede, reluctantly, that after the beating we’d given it this time it was pretty much good for nothing but the scrapheap.

I took off my overalls and hung them back on the peg I kept them on, and then headed out in to the yard in my camisole and shorts. Edward and Carlisle were laughing as Emmett, halfway up a tree, kept aiming kicks at Jasper as he leapt up and attempted to knock him out of it. Changing tactics Jasper swarmed up the trunk and pounced; and the two of them came crashing to the ground with an earth shattering thump. They rolled, and after more of a scuffle Emmett took the upper hand and gave a victory yell as he finally pinned Jasper.

Leaping up, Emmett swooped down on me and I shrieked as he grabbed me and tossed me in the air, catching me again in a hard hug and rubbing his face in my hair. “Hey baby doll!”

I wrapped my arms around him and bit him playfully on his lower lip. “Good to see you’re using your time constructively.”

Emmett grinned amiably. “I have to make sure they’re staying in line. Wouldn’t want Jasper and Edward to start getting ideas above themselves…” He shouted a cheerful farewell to them, and carried me off towards the house. “What about you, angel girl, what have you been doing?”

“I’ve been out in the garage. You need a new Jeep,” I reported. I wriggled around until I was facing Emmett, my legs wrapped around his waist. My shorts, which really were _very_ short, rode halfway up my ass and Emmett made a noise of appreciation and gripped a little harder.

“Aww, the Jeep’s fucked? Oh well, it had a good run and a new one could be fun.” Emmett stopped talking as I nibbled at his ear and ran my tongue along the line of his jaw. He slid his fingers inside my shorts, making me gasp and squirm against his hand, and then he chuckled darkly. “Oh, baby doll…”

We made it to the laundry room before he slammed me up against the wall, grinding into me as I fumbled with the buttons on his jeans. “God, Rosa girl!” I freed him from his clothes muttering, “ _Yes, yes, yes, Emmett”_ before he had to ask, and pushing my shorts to the side he thrust into me, hard, grunting with the effort as I moaned and gripped him between my legs. I came, hard and quickly, and moments later Emmett shuddered and threw his head back with a shout as he came too.

Emmett sat me on the washing machine while he did up his jeans. I waited until he was finished and then leaned forward, my head against his chest while he stroked my back with gentle hands. “Love you baby doll.” He swept my hair over one shoulder and dropped his head to kiss my neck. “Thank you for not being a bitch about the party.”

 I shrugged, not looking at him. “I’m trying Emmett…I can’t make any promises, but I am trying.”

I did try. I helped Alice with decorations, and kept my mouth shut tight against the acidic comments that came so readily to my lips. I waved her and Edward off to school in the morning with promises to dress up for her party and make sure Emmett installed the stereo in Bella’s truck at the first opportunity.

Edward drove Bella to our home in her truck late the following afternoon. Alice moved at superhuman speed around the living room lighting all her pink and white candles, as the rest of us gathered in the room, dressed in party clothes and in varying states of excitement over celebrating a birthday again. We heard the rumble of the truck from miles away, then the slam of its heavy doors and Edward’s laughter as he led Bella into the house. “Happy birthday Bella!”

She had not changed in the months since I had seen her last. Still shy and awkward and ordinary, still carrying the scent of human heat and blood into my home, still looking at Edward as though he hung the moon and made the stars just for her pleasure.

I carefully kept my face blank as Carlisle and Esme embraced Bella and wished her a happy birthday. I ground my teeth as Emmett greeted her with teasing cheer, and then slipped past her and out to the truck. I couldn’t bring myself to smile, but I kept my face pleasant as Alice dragged a clearly embarrassed Bella over to the table and began showering her with gifts.

Bella opened the package containing the empty stereo box and looked inside it, mystified. “Um…thanks?” she said doubtfully.

Even I smiled at that, as the others laughed. “It’s a stereo for your truck,” Jasper explained. “Emmett’s installing it right now so that you can’t return it.”

“Thank you Jasper and Rosalie,” Bella said with a genuine smile. “Thank you Emmett,” she added in a louder tone, and out on the driveway I heard Emmett laugh.

“Open mine and Edward’s next!” Alice’s voice was shrill with excitement. She loved all these human rituals so much, planning this party and these gifts had been like a gift for her as well. For a moment I was glad that Edward had convinced Bella, somehow, to allow Alice her fun.

Emmett entered the house again and bounded down the steps to stand behind me, his arms thrown casually around me. I fiddled with my pendant and watched as Bella slipped her finger under the taped paper and tried to slide it off.  But because she was Bella and eternally clumsy her finger slipped and the edge of the silver paper sliced her skin, a bead of blood welling out of the tiny cut. Because of this tiny accident, because she was human and we were not, and because we had done what we should never, ever have done and been in such close contact with such a fragile thing, all hell broke loose in our house.

It was a stroke of luck that I was standing in front of Emmett and the scent of the blood touched me first. In the fraction of a second I had to recognise what had happened and know what would happen next, I whipped my arm behind me and gripped Emmett’s balls in one hand. It was the only way I knew to stop someone whose strength was beyond any of us. The smell of the blood, so unexpected and so _wrong_ here, had briefly stripped him of reason and as I grabbed him he was already tensed and ready to strike but he froze at the touch of my hand. The pause was all he really needed, I felt him forcing his body to stand straight and I heard him stop breathing to cut back on the scent of the blood, and I knew it was safe enough to let him go. After all, this was _Bella_ and she was Edward’s, and Emmett would never hurt her consciously.

Emmett might not be a threat now, but Bella was far from safe. In the time it had taken for that brief and silent exchange between Emmett and I, Jasper had smelled the blood and, with a guttural snarl, had hurled himself towards it with only one intent. Edward stopped him, with a roar and a crash that shook the room as the two of them collided. This was not the play fighting of the previous day, oh no…Jasper was beyond reason with the scent of blood in his nose and the source of it so close and vulnerable, and Edward fought back like one possessed to protect his own.

If it hadn’t been bad enough already, as Edward pushed Bella out of reach of the ravenous predator determined to kill her that Jasper had become, that fragile, breakable human body flew backwards and crashed through the table in a shattering crash of crystal and glass. Her arm caught on a shard of glass and the delicate human skin tore from wrist to elbow and there was a moment of frozen, icy silence as all of us turned and stared at the blood that pumped out. Hot, red human blood, the dizzying scent of it swirling through the room, so much blood and so close…the monster within me raised its head and howled, and I felt the thirst burn before I brutally cut it down.

Jasper, maddened now beyond any hope of control, fought against Edward with everything he had. Edward swung round in front of Bella to protect her, but I didn’t know how long he could hold out against Jasper in his frenzy.

“Stop him!” I shouted at Emmett, who vaulted the stair rail and seized Jasper in his iron grip as Alice screamed.

“Emmett, Rose, get Jasper outside,” Carlisle ordered with his usual calm authority.

“Come on Jasper,” Emmett sounded rattled as Jasper struggled against his hold, twisting frantically in his arms and snapping at him with teeth bared. “Outside buddy, come on.”

I threw a look at Bella and rapidly crossed the room to Emmett and Jasper where, avoiding those lethal teeth as best I could, I helped Emmett wrestle Jasper out the door to the garden that Esme held open for us.

“Jasper…Jas!” I grabbed his face between my hands as Emmett kept the rest of his body pinned and squeezed hard, pushing back the blond hair that fell forward over his eyes. “Jas, it’s okay, you’re fine…it’s me, Rose, come on now, stop, stop, stop…” I stood in front of him and forced him to look at me, my golden eyes meeting his that were now flat black with the burning thirst. “Jasper, stop, you don’t want to do this. Look at me, please, Jasper…it’s okay now.”

His eyes met mine and the madness receded, to be replaced by a look of stricken horror. “Rosalie.” He slumped in Emmett’s arms and his head bowed. “What have I done?”

“You didn’t do anything,” I said quietly, nodding at Emmett who squeezed Jasper in a fierce hug before releasing him.

“It’s fine Jasper,” Emmett said, trying to sound cheerful. “There was just an accident, not your fault at all. You got a bit worked up but we got you outside. No harm done. It’s fine.”

Esme had followed us out, unable to stay anywhere near all that blood, and she put her arms around Jasper. “It was an accident Jasper, that’s all. Just an accident…please don’t upset yourself. Bella will be fine.”

Jasper glanced back through the glass wall to the living room. Edward was crouched beside Bella as Carlisle tied a tourniquet around her upper arm. The broken crystal and the blood dripping off Bella’s arm and pooling on the floor told the story clearly. “I was going to kill her,” he whispered, stricken. “If you hadn’t stopped me I would have killed her, killed _Bella_ …”

“Well, you didn’t,” I said sharply. Oh, there was so much I _wanted_ to say! In some ways it was harder for me to bite back the _I told you so!_ that was on the tip of my tongue than it had been to resist the call of Bella’s blood. But Jasper stood in front of me, the brother and friend I had grown to love over the years, and I knew that holding him together as his guilt and shame tore him apart was more important than anything else right now. And it had not been Jasper who brought Bella here and insisted she stay.

“ _Nothing happened,”_ I insisted, more quietly now. “It could have been any of us Jasper…it was very nearly Emmett if I hadn’t been able to grab him in time.” I gave Emmett an apologetic look, and he shrugged and shook his head at me.

“It wasn’t any of you though,” Jasper said quietly, shrugging out of Esme’s gentle hold. “It was me…it’s always me.” He turned away from all of us and stared out at the dark forest growing down to the edge of the meadow our house stood in. “I don’t have the control the rest of you do. I doubt I ever will, and I’m beginning to think it’s foolish even to try.”

“You’ve controlled yourself for years now Jasper,” I argued. “But everyone has limits, and a bleeding human in the one place we’ve never had to exert control tested everyone! She shouldn’t have been here at all, and we all know that’s the truth of it. It was inevitable that something like this would happen if Edward kept playing out his ridiculous fantasy that a relationship with Bella was possible! You can’t blame yourself for this.”

Emmett suddenly stepped forward and stood beside me, angling his shoulder so that he was slightly in front of me. I glanced at him questioningly, and then saw Edward silhouetted in the doorway and I snapped my mouth shut, but Emmett’s protective instinct was unnecessary. Edward didn’t even spare me a glance.

“Jasper.” His voice was soft. “I’m sorry. This is entirely my fault and you have nothing to blame yourself for…”

“Stop it Edward,” Jasper’s voice was weary. “No excuses. Don’t burden yourself with guilt over my failings.”

“You’ve failed at nothing,” Edward moved to stand beside Jasper. “I caused this, my selfishness and refusal to do what I have always known was the only right thing. I have put my own desires above everything else, the unity of my family and the safety of Bella…” Edward choked over the name, and for a long moment there was silence.

“Please,” Esme said anxiously. “Perhaps now is not the best time to discuss things? Jasper darling, everyone is overwrought and I’m sure Bella needs Edward. Tomorrow everyone will be feeling calmer and we will be able to see things more clearly.”

Alice appeared in the doorway and paused for a moment to take in deep gulps of the cold, clean air before she flitted across the grass to Jasper and took his hands. “Jasper, my love…”

Jasper could not even raise a smile for his beloved Alice, and his hands lay limp and unresponsive in hers. “Esme is right,” he said with an unnatural calm. “Now is not the time for discussion. Edward, Bella needs you and you should go to her. If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to go hunting.” His face twisted into a look of disgust. “It would seem that I’m thirsty.” He gently freed his hands from Alice and a moment later had vanished into the forest.

Edward turned on his heels and returned to the house without a word to anyone. At Alice’s small sound of distress Esme hurriedly took her in her arms, and the two of them moved towards the house accompanied by the gentle murmur of conversation. Left alone, Emmett and I stood for a moment in silent contemplation of all that happened.

“I’m sorry that I stopped you like I did,” I said finally, looking up at Emmett’s impassive face. “I know you hate it and I promised I wouldn’t do it again, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Emmett ran his hands through his hair and shrugged. “Eh, it’s probably just as well you did.” He grinned at me, with a brief flash of humour. “Like you don’t have me by the balls all the time anyway, baby doll!”

I smirked back, and leaned into him. “God, poor Jasper! What a mess.”

“Yeah,” Emmett wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “Christ, what a scene!” He looked at me, and I could see the twitch of embarrassment around his mouth. “Come out hunting with me baby doll? I guess Jasper’s not the only one, because that was really hard and I’m still fucking burning.”

I took his hand. “Whatever you want Emmett.”

We took off in the opposite direction to Jasper, knowing he wouldn’t want us near him. We ran until we came across a small herd of deer, and it was a sign of just  how perturbed by everything Emmett was that he didn’t try for something better, just snatching up the first small doe he got within reach of and draining it within seconds, then seizing a second one and doing the same. He buried the limp bodies quickly, and walked slowly across to where I was sitting on a low branch, watching him.

“Think we should go home?” he asked.

I sighed. “I was personally wishing we’d never left our ice palace up north…but yes. I think we should go home and see how things lie.”

Emmett wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my belly, as I bent low over him and kissed his curly head. “The family will work this out,” I said softly. “We _have_ to. This whole situation with Bella…oh, I’ve kept my mouth shut and we went away so I could avoid it but we can’t keep doing that. Tonight has proved that, if nothing else. What Edward is doing here is untenable, and something has to give.”

Emmett growled into my stomach in frustration, and I smiled wryly as I noticed the reversal of me soothing Emmett over anything to do with Bella Swan. I tugged at his hair to pull his face away from me, and when I could see his eyes, gleaming gold at me in the moonlight, I kissed him on the mouth, tasting the blood of the deer. I waited until he kissed back and then jumped lightly down, taking his hand and following him back towards home.

The house was darker now, Alice’s candles melting into pools of wax in the living room. All traces of Bella’s blood were gone and the smell of bleach hung heavy in the air. I listened and heard the murmur of conversation coming from the dining room- Carlisle and Jasper, with an occasional comment from Alice or Esme. I wondered what they were saying now, but the door was closed and I took the hint and left them in privacy, Emmett and I trailing upstairs.

Once in our room I walked into the closet and took off my high heels and party dress, leaving them in a crumpled pile on the floor, too dispirited to deal with anything so mundane now. I left on my knickers and slipped into a soft cotton t-shirt, and then turned back to Emmett.

He was lying on his back on the bed, hands folded behind his head, eyes closed and breathing perfectly even.

“What are you doing?”

“Pretending to sleep,” he answered tiredly. “Feel free to join me.”

I slipped lightly onto the bed beside him, snuggling my head into his shoulder and absently sliding my hand inside his shirt so I could trace the trail of hair down his chest and belly as I stared up at the heavy brocade canopy above us. I loved our bed. Emmett had built it back when we lived in Forks the first time, built it right here in the bedroom because even he would have had trouble manoeuvring the enormous thing around once it was finished. He built it with aged oak that had the hardness of iron, and he had polished it to a beautiful dark sheen. It was the first piece of furniture we’d ever had that lasted longer than a few months. He’d built it to last, and as the years went past and it stood up to everything he and I did on it I had started to think it would still be here when the house itself had aged and crumbled around it.

Emmett stroked his hand through my hair, and I closed my eyes too, pretending I could feel a heartbeat, wishing us back before the events of the evening.

“You really think this is going to change everything?” Emmett sounded wistful. “It’s just that it’s all been pretty good here in Forks this time. I know you haven’t exactly been cheerleading for the Edward and Bella thing, but she’s made Edward real happy and that’s been a good thing.”

I thought back to the look on Edward’s face as he had fought against Jasper, his own brother, as the blood of his Bella had spilled out on to the floor. I thought of his face later on as he looked at Jasper in the garden, and I winced at the remembered agony I’d seen there. “Things have to change,” I said. “We’re the freaks of our kind, living as we do, but no matter what we do we’ll never change what we are. Humans will always be prey and as long as we live the way we do we’ll always be fighting our instincts. It will never be safe for her to be so near to us and we have to stop pretending that it can work out, just because that’s what Edward wants.”

“It sounds like you’ve thought it all through.” Jasper stood in the doorway with Alice, her elfin face unhappy, standing slightly behind him.

I rolled away from Emmett and sat up against the head of the bed, gesturing for the two of them to come in. They did, Alice sitting perched on the end of the bed, Jasper learning stiffly against the post.

“Of course, I’ve been thinking it through,” I said quietly. “Not just because of what happened tonight either, Jasper. I meant what I said before; it could have been any one of us out of control at any moment while she was here. It’s an intolerable situation, which is why Emmett and I have spent the past three months away from home.”

Jasper nodded. His face was carefully blank, but I could see the shame burning bright in his golden eyes. “Much of what you say is right Rosalie, but I feel that I’m the only real danger here. I cannot trust myself here any longer, so I have decided that I must go away somewhere for a time.”

I glanced at Alice who bit her lip and looked at me helplessly. “Where?” I asked sharply. “You shouldn’t go anywhere Jasper, this is your home!” There was a big difference between Emmett and me leaving on an extended holiday by choice, and Jasper feeling himself chased from his own home by the guilt of something that wasn’t even his fault.

Jasper shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. I may look up Peter and Charlotte, perhaps visit with some other old acquaintances, maybe go back to the South for a time.” His eyes met mine for a brief moment, begging for understanding. “I think a break would do me good.”

 _A break from what?_ I wondered, knowing that none of Jasper’s old friends shared our particular vampire diet. I wanted to dissuade him from leaving, but Jasper was stubborn enough to rival even me and I knew a lost cause when I saw one.

“Take the BMW,” I said at last. “If you’re going to go, you may as well do it in style.” There was almost no bigger sacrifice I could make than offering the use of my beloved car and Jasper recognised the feeling behind the gesture. He smiled at me, a weak and pale version of his usual Southern charm, but at least it was genuine. He touched my hair briefly, then he and Emmett clenched hands and moved into a hug.

“Be careful brother,” Emmett said fiercely. “Just take some time, and then come home buddy, because we’re all gonna miss you.”

Jasper clapped Emmett on the back and then walked straight backed from the room. Alice gave an inarticulate sob and I put my arms around her, holding her tight while Emmett grabbed both of us and pulled us onto his lap in a tangle of arms and legs.

“You can’t stop him,” I said, more a statement than a question.

“No,” Alice shook her head. “He’s determined to leave; he’s crucifying himself with the guilt. I wish he’d just stay and talk to Edward about it! But we’re going tonight. Thank you for the car Rosalie, he’ll be sure to take care of it.”

“Can’t you see what’s going to happen?” Emmett asked. “How long you’ll be gone? What’s Edward going to do?”

“It’s not clear,” Alice told us mournfully. “I see us going, but I’m trying to convince him to go to Denali although he’s resisting, so I don’t even know where we’re going. Edward is very conflicted too…this isn’t easy for anyone.” She eyed me anxiously. “Take care of Carlisle and Esme Rosalie and please, don’t fight with Edward.”

I sighed impatiently. “I’m not going to fight with Edward! The time for fighting is long past. I just want my family back, that’s all…” My voice trailed off, because there were no words to express how fiercely I loved my family and how much my heart ached over what had happened to us since the coming of Bella Swan.

Crushed together on Emmett’s big lap, Alice and I shared a look of mutual understanding. For all of us, family was everything. This family that I had been born to in my vampire life, and Alice had seen in her mind and searched for, was at the centre of everything. It was not merely for decoration that I wore my heavy Cullen pendant almost exclusively. Even as the thought of it drifted into my mind Alice lightly touched it with her finger, and then hugged me again and kissed me roundly on the cheek. She twisted around to face Emmett, and smiled and kissed him too. “Take care of Rose Emmett…stand between her and Edward if need be! I must help Jasper pack, he wants to be gone as soon as possible and we need a few things. Thank you again for the loan of the car, Rose!”

She pattered from the room, and I curled up as small as I could in the comfort of Emmett’s lap, seeking reassurance from his strong, loving arms. I didn’t want to talk about this development, not yet. The idea of Jasper and Alice leaving the family for an indeterminate time was abhorrent. They simply never had, and this was not a holiday with a planned destination and promise of return…this was flight, and I wondered bleakly where it would end. Jasper struggled with the constraints of our diet as it was; how would he manage without the constant help and support of the rest of us? Was it possible for him to continue to battle his extreme thirst without Carlisle’s endless belief and quiet encouragement? Would he even want to?

Beyond all that, I would simply miss him. When it came to the complex patterns of family allegiances, beyond the pair mating bonds, Jasper was mine, my steadfast friend and ally. From the day he and Alice turned up on the doorstep and she announced that we were their family, he and I had slipped into an easy companionship. He had been a Southern gentleman with the kind of manners and attitude I understood, and in response I was as pleasant and charming as I knew how to be, which was considerably. The antagonism that had plagued my relationship with Edward just wasn’t a factor with Jasper. My faults, such as my vanity and selfishness and temper, were things Jasper understood and was not unduly bothered by. My more positive qualities of honesty and loyalty and strength were, on the other hand, things Jasper valued highly and so his opinion of me was correspondingly high.

Our friendship had only strengthened over the years. It was helped by the fact that Alice made me into the sister she’d always wanted and loved me. Another factor was that we looked more alike than any of the others, both of us tall and blonde, and so we generally presented ourselves to the outside world as twins, sharing classes in order to be close throughout the sometimes difficult school days. He’d even taken my surname without complaint as part of this ruse whenever it was necessary. I was aware of his struggles against temptation and did what I could to ameliorate them, becoming his frequent hunting partner because of this. He found it easier to confess what he saw of as failings to me and ask for my help, rather than to the other boys or to Carlisle, whom he idolised. Although I disagreed that he had anything to feel bad about, shame was one human emotion that I knew all too much about and the two of us grew to a shared sympathy and understanding.  

Even in the matter of Bella Swan Jasper had been on my side. His analytical mind had examined the possibilities we were dealing with and known that eliminating Bella Swan as a source of risk was the safest thing to do. Both of us dealt better in the real, in what could be seen and touched and changed, and as I watched Jasper and Alice leave our family and home in my red BMW I wished heartily that the rest of the family had listened to us the previous spring. If we’d taken action then, this would never have become such an issue.

There was little conversation between the four of us remaining at home once Alice and Jasper had gone. Esme and Carlisle cleared away all evidence of the ill-fated party and then sat together in a near silent game of cribbage. Emmett watched television, flipping through the channels restlessly. I went out to the garage and stripped the Jeep of everything salvageable; hoping to soothe my mental turmoil with the familiar mechanical work, but it wasn’t terribly successful.

Edward appeared in the morning, his face blank and his eyes remote. I knew he would be listening to our thoughts to learn what had taken place in his absence, and I forced my mind to think of nothing but the new Jeep I was planning on buying and modifying again for Emmett.

“How is Bella?” Carlisle asked Edward, asking both on a professional and personal level.

“Her arm is painful,” Edward said quietly. “I had her take some Tylenol and I believe it helped.”

His answer went no further, and I found myself wondering what Bella’s reaction to last night’s events had been. She _should_ have been terrified, if she had any real understanding of how close she had come to death, but her reactions to our vampirism had never been what we would have expected. I believed she did not fully comprehend our otherness, did not really understand that it wasn’t just drinking blood and perfect physical strength, but that on every single fundamental level we _were not human._

“She doesn’t understand that, Rosalie,” Edward said coldly, hearing my unguarded thoughts. “How could she, really? As you’ve pointed out time and time again, _Bella is not one of us._ ”

I felt myself bristling. “Don’t you dare put this on me, Edward,” I said sharply. “I refuse to be the villain this time. I’ve said nothing to you about what happened last night and what we should do now. I’m not your conscience.”

Edward’s face was set, his jaw tense as he acknowledged me with a nod. “I believe I understand your point Rosalie.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a bitch,” I said, taking a deep breath and forcing myself to remain calm. “Not this time, anyway! But I won’t let you push me into voicing what your own conscience is telling you and then have you resent me for it.”

“Now is not the time for this,” Carlisle interjected. “Edward, you have school. I’ve written a note excusing Alice for the time being and I’ll ask you to hand it in to the office.” He passed an envelope bearing his MD letterhead to Edward, who slipped it in to the front pocket of his backpack.

“Tonight,” Edward said in a low voice. “I’ll not stay with Bella, but come home and we can talk tonight.” He turned and left for school.

I returned to the garage, Emmett on my heels. He looked somewhat sadly at the remains of his Jeep, and then shrugged philosophically. “You’ll build me a new one, right? Maybe I should get a black one this time.” He picked up on of the mangled doors I’d left leaning against the wall, and grunted as he mashed it into a ball between his hands.

“Always a show off,” I remarked, watching him in amusement as he tossed it from hand to hand.

Emmett hurled it at my head, and I caught it without blinking and tossed it onto the junk heap. “Princess Bitchface,” he said with a grin. “You were very nice to Edward then baby doll, I was impressed.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve always said he overthinks everything, but this is ridiculous. It’s time to stop all the soul searching and heartrending agony he and Bella seem to thrive on, and take some action.”

“Either cut Bella loose, or change her,” Emmett nodded, and I scowled.

“Not change her. He needs to leave her.”

Emmett held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to argue about it with you Rose! God knows there’s going to be enough arguing in the family tonight without you and I getting into it with each other now.”

“True enough,” I sighed, looking sadly at the place where my BMW usually parked.

Time moved slowly as we waited for Edward’s return from school and Bella’s home. I hated the feeling of uncertainty that came from not knowing what was going to happen. When the phone rang in the afternoon I snatched it up, relieved to hear Alice’s chirping voice coming down the line.

“How are you and Jasper? Have you convinced him to just come home?” I demanded.

“Not quite,” Alice spoke cautiously. “He’s being a little…difficult about it. You know his feelings about honour Rosalie, and he sees his attack on Bella and Edward as unforgiveable. He refuses to put her in any further danger, although I’ve told him and told him that he’s not a danger to her, not really!”

“So you won’t be coming home,” I said slowly, because I did indeed know Jasper’s feeling regarding his honour. “Not as long as Bella is part of things.”

“It’s not Bella’s fault either!” Alice said hastily. “It’s just complicated Rose, you realise that.”

I did realise that, and I passed the phone to Carlisle with a sense of glum resignation. Joining Emmett on the sofa and staring unseeingly at the tv, I pondered over the choices we seemed to have remaining.   

Edward reappeared in the evening, moving silently into the house and taking a seat in the living room. I had been painting Esme’s nails at the kitchen table but with a glance at her face finished in a blur of speed so the two of us could follow him. Emmett was still slumped on the sofa staring at the television and I threw myself down beside him as Carlisle came rapidly down the stairs from his study.

“Edward,” he said, and the two of them locked eyes for a long moment.

“I haven’t discussed anything with Bella yet,” Edward said, in response to a mental question from Carlisle.

“I want you to know that the family will do anything we can,” Carlisle said softly. “What happens next is entirely your choice, but we will support you in doing whatever you feel is right. All of us.”

Edward’s face was expressionless. “Thank you. I would not have asked you all to endure such family disruption on my account, but it will make things…easier. For Bella.” Edward’s jaw twitched. “I’ve been selfish and put my own desires above what is right for some time now. I’m doing nothing but putting Bella in danger and causing trouble for the family, and I realise this can’t continue. I know Rose and Emmett left over the summer because of myself and Bella, and now Jasper and Alice have gone too.”

Emmett stirred restlessly. “I like Bella,” he muttered rebelliously. “It’s been working fine up until now. So Jasper tried to kill her…so what? What’s the occasional attempted murder between friends? She’s still alive and no one even lost any limbs. He tried to kill me once too, remember? I got over it, and Bella will too.”

“Bella is already over it,” Edward said impatiently. “But her life is in danger every minute she is near any of us Emmett, and I can’t do that to her! Even if we all keep perfectly restrained, what kind of life will she have with me? There is so much I can never give her, things like marriage and children and growing old with someone, and as long as I am around she’ll never let go enough to find someone else that will be better for her!”

“But you and Bella...” Esme protested, but stopped as Edward held up his hand.

“Don’t,” he said, almost harshly. “I know what you’re going to say, but I refuse to take her life by changing her, and I refuse to hold her back in _this_ life by staying by her side when I know better. It would be unutterably selfish of me…I _know_ she thinks she loves me,” he snapped in obvious response to Esme’s unspoken thoughts. “But she’s eighteen and a human. She doesn’t see the future the way we do, and I’ve listened to Rosalie enough over the past seventy years to know that just because Bella doesn’t think these things are important now doesn’t mean they’ll never become important.”

  I narrowed my eyes, but there was no trace of antagonism in Edward’s voice and he looked back at me without rancour.

“Bella sees the glamour of what we are, but there is so much that she doesn’t see too,” he went on. “I have to give her the chance to have a normal life, a normal _human_ life…”

His cell phone rang and he turned away to pick it up, but we all clearly heard Alice’s overwrought voice.

“Edward, I’ve just seen and…you can’t! Bella will be…”

“NO!” Edward roared, his composure shattering. “Don’t do this Alice! I’ve made up my mind and it’s the only choice possible. Bella will move on from me, and have a chance to find happiness. Stay out of it Alice, I mean it! Don’t look for her. It’s over.” Without waiting for a response he slammed the phone down onto the arm of the chair and looked at Esme and Carlisle, forcing his face back to its usual smooth countenance. “We must leave,” he said in clipped tones. “All of us, as soon as possible. I am very sorry for the difficulties of that, but it’s the only way. The best way for Bella. A clean break from me, from all of the Cullens.” His face twisted with a pain that touched even me, and there was a long silence.

“Very well,” Carlisle said finally. “I understand Edward, and if that’s the way you want it then we’ll all support you and make it as easy as possible. I’ll hand in an immediate resignation at the hospital…” he broke off and answered his cell phone. “Yes, Alice?...The New York house? Of course, if you and Jasper would like to open it up for us we’ll be there in a few days…Please do what you can to reassure him…I understand.” He tapped at the phone and then look at Esme with a smile. “We’re going back to the New York house it seems.”

Esme’s nose wrinkled. “That’s in fairly dreadful condition I believe. However it’s furnished and ready to be used, and it’s been some time since we were there.”

Edward ran his hands through his hair. “Thank you, all of you.”

“It’s nothing,” Carlisle said gently. “Family is always there Edward, you know that.”

Emmett stood up and scuffed Edward’s hair, dodging effortlessly as Edward aimed a fist at him. “Not as though you haven’t moved for me,” he said sweetly. “It’s about time I got to do the same for you.”

I followed Emmett up the stairs to our room, where he pulled down a duffel bag from the top of the closet shelf. One sweep of his arms cleared half the hangers from his section of the closet as he dumped everything in to the bag, a second sweep of his arm poured a shelf of jeans in on top, then he shook the bag and crushed it together until he could do up the zip. “Clothes packed,” he announced in tones of satisfaction.

I snorted in incredulity. “You’re amazing. You don’t need anything else?”

Emmett shrugged. “I’ll buy new.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled down my own suitcase to begin packing. Emmett found a cardboard moving box in the back of the closet (long experience had taught us to be prepared for these sudden evacuations) and began tossing random objects into it. He hummed as he did so, and once again I marvelled at Emmett’s ability to just enjoy the moment.

“Do you think he’s doing the right thing?” Emmett asked after a while. He was sitting backwards on the desk chair, the cardboard box at his feet as he riffled through the drawers.

“Edward? Yes, I do,” I snapped shut the suitcase and pushed it over by the door then got down a second one. “He’s already proven that he’s unable to stay away from Bella if we’re here. Jasper won’t come back and if he won’t then Alice won’t. And really Emmett, how well do you think Jasper is going to manage to control himself without the rest of us to help him?”

“Probably not that great,” Emmett admitted, but then countered quietly, “But how well do you think Edward is going to manage without Bella?”

That was not a question I had a ready answer to, and when I remembered the look of agony on Edward’s face it was not a comfortable question to consider. Silently I continued packing.

Several wordless hours later Emmett and I were ready to leave. I had helped Esme fling dust sheets over the furniture as Carlisle went to the hospital to arrange his affairs there and Edward left with a set face and fire in his eyes to meet Bella at school. Emmett and I had packed what we needed and there seemed little point in waiting around while Edward, Esme and Carlisle tidied away the remains of our life in Forks. We would instead travel to meet Jasper and Alice and ready the New York house.

I threw the suitcases in Edward’s Aston Martin, unable to stop the grin from spreading across my face at the prospect of driving it across the country. It wasn’t my BMW of course, but it certainly had style and class of its own and was Edward’s secret pride and joy- which of course meant I rarely, if ever, got my hands on it to drive it! But with my BMW already gone with Alice and Jasper and Emmett’s Jeep in pieces in the garage, taking the Vanquish was the best option. It left the Mercedes for Carlisle and Esme and the Volvo for Edward to follow us to New York. Jasper’s Ducati, my sweet restored BMW 328 and the other vehicles would, for the time being, remain in the garage.

Esme hugged me tightly, her face sad. I knew what hopes she had had for Edward and Bella; she had a true romantic’s heart and this ending to Edward’s romance, such as it was, was shattering her dreams of happily ever after. “Take care my dears,” she said, extending her hug to Emmett who picked her up in his massive arms and squeezed. “Emmett!”

“Sorry Mom.” He placed her carefully back on the ground, smiling as he swung into the passenger seat of the car and plugged his iPod into the dock. “We’ll be fine; we’ll be with Alice and Jasper pretty soon. Hopefully we’ll talk Jas out of his funk and things will pick up once we’re in the new place.”

I slipped into the driver’s seat and a moment later we were speeding smoothly out of the drive. I glanced back once to see Esme standing alone in front of the big white house, her arm raised in a wave, before firmly setting my eyes forward. _Move on. Think of the future. Don’t obsess over what you’re leaving behind._ Carlisle’s words from many years of moving echoed in my head and I sighed impatiently.

“Hey babydoll,” Emmett said, after miles of silence. “I found this when I was packing.” He handed me an age spotted black and white photograph. “It’s from last time we were in the New York house.”

I took the picture and looked at it, a sudden smile softening my face. “Oh, wow.”

We didn’t take too many photographs really. There was not much point when the only thing that ever changed were our clothes and, to a smaller extent, hairstyles. We didn’t need photographs to remind us of events, and over time we had become increasingly aware that photographs provided evidence of our existence that could be awkward or difficult to explain away. But there were several from various points throughout our personal history and the one Emmett had just handed me was one I had kept, hidden in my jewellery box, for over forty years.

It showed Emmett, Alice, Jasper, Edward and I standing on the steps of our New York country house, the rambling brick home built nestled at the edge of the state forest. Looking at the photo now we appeared as though we were on our way to a costume party- Alice posing with a cheeky grin wearing a mini dress and high boots with her short hair slicked back, beside her Jasper in jeans and a t shirt with a peace sign printed on the front; Edward in trousers and a plaid shirt standing slightly apart; Emmett in jeans and a fringed vest, with one arm around me wearing my embroidered peasant blouse and skirt. My hair was falling in long loose waves on either side of my face, and I was looking into the camera with a knowing smile.

“I remember this,” I said softly. “It was 1968, and it was Alice and Edward’s first day of college.”

 “Yes. It just made me think, when I saw it, about everything we did that year.” Emmett hesitated.

“And remember how it all ended,” I finished for him, and he nodded.

“I don’t know baby doll, it just seems weird to be running _back_ there because of a human when it was the place we all had to run _away_ from last time we got too involved with humans.” Emmett took the photo back and looked at it with a frown, which then transformed into a grin. “God, look at us! I know it all went to hell, but didn’t we have a good time?” He choked back a laugh. “Really Rosa girl, with all this drama and Edward and Jasper at each other’s throats the other night, this is just like fucking Woodstock all over again!”

I snorted with a kind of horrified laughter, and then clapped my hand across my mouth. “God Emmett…I hope not!”

The Woodstock music festival had been at the centre of the single bitterest disagreement our family had ever had over our dealings with the human world, and had brought us closer to implosion than any other event before or since. Emmett and I might privately laugh at the incongruity of the famous festival of peace and love and music in the 60’s nearly destroying our family, but at the time it had been anything but a joke. Even now I think we were the only ones who found any amusement at the memory; the others avoided any mention of it and the very name had become almost a dirty word in the Cullen house.

 “We’ll be okay. As long as we’re together my angel, we’re going to be fine. Through bears and Woodstock music festivals and Bella Swan,” Emmett grinned. “You and me Rosa girl, always.”

I smiled back at him, my beautiful and beloved bear of a man, and as we drove through the morning I let my mind remember. _Bears and Woodstock and Bella Swan…_

 


	3. Woodstock- 1969

The decade of the sixties was a whirlwind of social change in America, and we found this reflected within our own family, as we moved out of what had been a particularly repressive decade for us.

Alice and Jasper had joined our family in 1950, just walking up to the front porch one day and announcing that they were home, and which way was their room? After some initial confusion we welcomed them with open arms and it soon seemed as though they’d always been with us apart from one thing: the difficulty Jasper had adjusting to our ‘vegetarian’ lifestyle. He had lived on human blood since his change in 1863 and it was a struggle for him to alter that. Not only because of the temptation of taste and satisfaction, but also because in his vampire life he had grown to rely very heavily on his instincts to keep him safe and he was prone to react first and only think with the human part of his mind later.

Jasper’s unpredictability led to very frequent moves over the next fifteen years. School was out of the question and Alice refused to attend without him. Edward and Emmett and I tried, but the constant moves made this difficult and although we continued to study by ourselves and with Carlisle we basically gave up formal education. Avoiding drawing attention to our family in any way became a necessity, and during this time we turned inward and became closer as a family unit. Apart from Carlisle, who continued his hospital work, the human world seemed to exist only on the periphery of our lives as we immersed ourselves in each other and the family.

It wasn’t boring. We were all good at entertaining ourselves, becoming obsessed with hobbies and skills as the came up and then just as easily tossing them aside for something new. For the first time we had a television for entertainment, as well as our standbys of books and music and art and cars.

More than anything else, Alice and Jasper were like a shiny new toy for Edward and Emmett and I, with hosts of new stories and information and games. Alice’s gift also proved an exciting new diversion as we explored different ways to use it- anything from cheating at chess to hunting to making money. In fact making money became one of our favourite past times as we all took to gambling in a big way. With a mind reader and now a seer in the family, a night out at a casino could be a very lucrative way to spend time.

There had always been money in the family. Carlisle had been accruing it for centuries; and after his human death Edward had managed, through means that ran the gamut from unethical to downright illegal, to inherit his own family’s considerable estate. Of course Esme, Emmett and I had brought nothing material with us, but after a certain point money makes money without effort and there had never been a shortage. But now, with the stock market to play and Alice’s gift to guide us, our wealth went through the stratosphere.

By the middle of the 60’s though, we were ready for a change. Jasper had gained a measure of control that made the close human contact of school possible for him, so when Carlisle was offered a job in a northern hospital he accepted it and we moved as a family to New York and settled in to begin a new and more human life. We bought a ramshackle farmhouse on the edge of a state forest wilderness and Esme set about transforming it into a home, and Emmett, Edward, Jasper, Alice and I enrolled in school.

It was the first time the five of us had attended together, and stories and identities had to be created. We began what would become our most common tale to explain our family situation- Edward, Emmett and Alice took the surname Cullen and became Carlisle and Esme’s adopted children; Jasper and I, alike enough in colouring and features, used my surname of Hale and posed as Esme’s twin niece and nephew, living with her to attend school.

The five of us kept close during those high school years. Emmett and I, without making a big deal of it, signed up for classes that kept one or both of us alongside Jasper at all times. Jasper had not been to school since his human life of a century before and Alice had no memory of attending a school at all, so the two of them found it all to be new and often unsettling and welcomed the help from Edward and Emmett and I. We ate lunch together, studied together and once Emmett, always one to follow the prevailing trends, bought a kombi van, travelled to and from school together. It wasn’t until two years had passed and Emmett, Jasper and I graduated and moved on to college that the cracks in the previously unassailable family unit began to make themselves felt.

Emmett and I had a glorious time at college. I had been chafing against the restrictions of our life for some time, and going to college felt like stumbling into a different world, a world of more freedom and fun than I’d ever had available to me before. All of a sudden the rigid rules of etiquette and manners and the ‘place in life’ that I’d had drummed into me from childhood didn’t seem to matter anymore. I had freedom to wear what I wanted, say what I wanted and become what I wanted to become and I embraced it wholeheartedly.

I passed over the more feminine academic pursuits and did physics. Certainly female students were a very small minority in that area, and treated with varying levels of respect by the other students and the professors, but with my perfect vampire memory and rapid reading speed it did not take long before I was known as a formidable intellect. Emmett took a more eclectic approach to his degree and enrolled in a number of different courses, but made only enough effort to scrape up the bare number of credits and passing grades to avoid being expelled. Instead, he taught himself to play the guitar, and spent much of his college time hanging out with the stoners and radicals in smoky cafes and the shady courtyard.

Together, we had another wedding and invited many new friends. He stopped wearing shoes and I stopped wearing a bra. I braided flowers into my hair and he and I joined protests against a war a million miles away that he could never be drafted for anyway, and participated in demonstrations for safe and affordable birth control and abortions that we’d never need. We talked philosophy and listened to music endlessly and pretended, once again, to be human.

In short, both of us forgot to be careful. We forgot that our safety depended on playing by the rules and being inconspicuous. We forgot the cardinal rule of the family, _don’t draw attention to yourself._

It was mostly my fault, I know that. I loved attention and admiration, and it was my vanity that stopped me from seeing clearly. The 60s me found it so gratifying to walk across the quad and know that I was being watched by the envious eyes of the other girls and the admiring gaze of the men. In class I knew that the professors and other students looked at me initially, all blonde hair and endless legs, and dismissed me as nothing more than a pretty face and I worked and fought to make them respect me as so much than that. They did in the end, since I could run rings around them academically and, as exams and papers proved this again and again, they all knew it. After a decade of being almost exclusively with family who never did pander to my vanity, my ego needed the stroking I got from the accolades and admiration of the humans around me, and so much pleasure did I get from it that I failed, once again, to stop and _think_ about what it was I was doing and risking.

 The following year, Edward and Alice joined Jasper, Emmett and I at college. For Alice it was the first time and, as she studied fashion design, she threw herself into this hedonistic life of play too, dragging Jasper along with her. She loved the music and the clothes and built around us all a peculiarly nocturnal social life. Jasper, who had spent little time socialising with Emmett and I and our human friends the previous year, joined her willingly enough, although with his still shaky control tended to remain on the outskirts of the group. He was studying history and philosophy and, unlike Emmett, was also determined to graduate well.

Edward took up a medical degree for a second time, as much to assist Carlisle in keeping up with current developments as for his own interest. He behaved as we always had, as we _should have_ behaved- circumspectly, drawing no attention to himself, remembering always the rules we lived by and why they were so important. He was the voice of reason, and warned the rest of us often that what we were doing was foolish and risked much.

I don’t know why we didn’t listen. Simply because we didn’t want to, I suppose. Because we were having fun, Emmett and Alice and I; and because after living so reclusively and constantly moving for so long we were enjoying being settled and being a part of this new social world around us; because it was so easy to ignore Edward’s dour warnings when he seemed to disapprove of everything; because he and I still sparked off each other and it was too easy for me to irritate him with my music and flowers and politics, and I was still such a baby and a bitch that I enjoyed that. We overestimated our abilities to control ourselves and underestimated how noticeable all that preternatural beauty and skill made us in a crowd.  Like Edward, Carlisle and Esme were concerned, but we were careless and arrogant when we shouldn’t have been, and just as Edward predicted disaster was inevitable.

 

“Mmmm.” I was sitting on the edge of the kitchen bench, Emmett standing between my legs as he kissed me deeply, one big hand sliding down my back as the other tangled in my hair. I let my own hands wander under his t-shirt and heard the rumble of pleasure as they lingered on the waistband of his jeans.

“Do you two mind?” Edward, behind a pile of books on the kitchen table, frowned at us. “I’m trying to work here.”

“Sorry,” Emmett said cheerfully, turning his back to me and facing Edward as I scowled. Edward caught my look and glared back.

“You’ve got a bedroom…go and use that,” he snapped. “No one else is particularly interested in _watching_ you, something you might consider when you’re selecting your clothes Rosalie.”

I glanced down at my short skirt and skimpy halter and rolled my eyes. “Your jealousy is showing Edward. Perhaps you should go and find yourself your own piece of ass and then you might stop begrudging everyone else enjoying what they have.”

“Rosalie!” Esme, coming in from outside with an armful of flowers sounded scandalised. “Mind your language, please!”

Carlisle followed behind her, more flowers in a basket over his arm. Ever the peacemaker he gave Edward a sympathetic look and then winked at me. “They’re just clothes. No need to get upset.” Of course he took the long view of things. Fashion was barely a blip on the radar when you were over three hundred years old. He bent over the books Edward was flipping through, and asked a technical sounding question.

I slipped off the bench and began arranging some of Esme’s flowers in a vase, still annoyed with Edward. I hated him commenting on my clothes. He never did it to Alice, even when we wore the same thing. Admittedly clothes looked quite different on Alice’s tiny, delicate figure to the way they did on my big breasts and small waist and long legs, but it was still a double standard on Edward’s part and that frustrated me. He’d probably prefer it if I wore the long skirts and high necks of the Victorian era that his mother had worn, I mused crossly.

Emmett came up behind me, his hands moving up my thighs and sliding under the hem of skirt to cup my rear. His fingers twitched between my legs, and it took effort not to fling the flowers aside and start rubbing myself against him. He nuzzled at my neck, and a second later there was a crash as a book went flying into the back of his head.

“Stop it!” Edward shouted. “Go away! Emmett, I can _read your mind!_ I don’t even have to try; in fact I can’t avoid it because you transmit thought like you’re using a megaphone! Just because I can’t see what you’re doing doesn’t mean I don’t know and I wish I didn’t! All I ask is that you and Rosalie just _go somewhere else!”_

Emmett threw his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, okay! I just _forget_ that you can read my mind Edward, I’m not exactly thinking of you when I’m thinking about…okay, okay, we’re going!”

He grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind him to our room. Unlike the other bedrooms which were in the recently built extension to the house, ours was in the old cottage part beyond Carlisle’s study and the dining room. I suspected this was more careful planning on Esme’s part than coincidence. Edward was not the only one who objected to the frequent and occasionally (even I could admit it) obnoxious displays of affection between Emmett and I.

“He’s such a prude,” I muttered under my breath.

“Nah, Edward’s okay,” Emmett easily held two of my hands in one of his and pushed me backwards until my legs hit the bed and I fell onto my back. “You should go easy on him baby doll. I wouldn’t want to listen to what goes on in my head either, if I didn’t get to take my beautiful girl back to the bedroom and make it happen!” He gave a rich laugh, and undid my halter with his free hand, pulling it away from my body and eyeing my bare breasts with clear approval. He lowered his head and flicked his tongue over my nipple until it hardened under his touch and I arched my back to push closer to his mouth.

“Oh, Rosa girl…” Emmett moved his attention to my other breast, clearly intending to take his time. “He’s insane to hate on the clothes though…so much easier to get you out of than some of that other stuff you used to wear! All those buttons! And not wearing a bra…I dig that baby doll.” He lapped at my breast and then sucked hard, teeth grazing the nipple so that I turned my head and muffled a moan in my own arm, which Emmett was still holding above my head.

His free hand slid under my skirt again and my panties disappeared in his strong fingers as he nudged my legs further apart with his knees. I moved against his hand as his mouth went back to my breast and I felt the familiar wave of pleasure building.  “Emmett…”

He released my hands and I grabbed his dark hair and pulled him up to me, kissing him across his face until I met his lips. “ _Love you, Emmett, love you…”_

“I want you so bad, Rosa,” Emmett drew away enough to look at me, his breathing ragged and his eyes dark with desire as he took his hands away to fumble with the buttons of his jeans. “My angel girl, I need you…”

“I want you, oh Emmett…” I grabbed at him, feeling the bulging muscles of his shoulders as he picked me up and tossed me further up the bed so he could lie full length above me. “Now, oh god yes, yes, _yes…”_

I opened myself to him and felt him slide in, all of him, filling me up and making me whole as we moved together, his reverent words of love echoing in my mind. _“My Rosa, my angel…love you, love you, want you…need you Rosa girl, my Rosa…yes, oh god yes!”_ I wrapped arms and legs around him, kissing and touching wherever hands and mouth could reach, driving him on until he came with a final thrust and a shout. Only then did I let myself go, coming apart around him as I lost myself in what he made me feel, my own sounds muffled in the broad chest that loomed above me. _Mine, mine, mine._

Afterwards I sat naked on the bed brushing my hair as Emmett lounged beside me, strumming happily on his guitar.

“ _To everything – turn, turn, turn/ There is a season, turn, turn, turn/ And a time for every purpose under heaven./ A time to be born, a time to die/ A time to plant, a time to reap./ A time to kill, a time to heal/ A time to laugh, a time to weep_.” He stopped singing and paused for a minute. “Maybe not a time for everything for us though,” he said thoughtfully.

“You’re getting very good at that,” I said to him, continuing to brush. Emmett’s voice was lovely, and although his huge hands were not really ideal for playing guitar his vampire skills made up for that.

“Thank you. I’m not exactly Edward on his damn piano, but it’ll do. There’d be too many questions to answer if I started carrying a piano to school anyway.”

Edward and I managed several days of civility before the next blow up. He came home from an evening class and stormed into the living room where the rest of us were watching television together and threw a piece of paper at me. “You didn’t think to mention this?”

I scanned the paper. It was an announcement that had been pinned on the notice board of the science faculty about the awarding of various prizes and the recipients, including a prestigious and seldom awarded physics honour to Rosalie Cullen. I shrugged and passed the announcement across to Carlisle. “They’re having a ceremony for it, but since I was hardly expecting you to come along and clap for me Edward, no, I didn’t think to mention it.”

“You just _don’t_ think, and that’s the problem!” Edward turned and appealed to Carlisle. “We need to talk about this Carlisle. It’s not just this award, it’s that Rosalie seems to be going out of her way to attract attention and make herself known. Everyone in college knows the name Rosalie Cullen now, and that notoriety starts extending out to the rest of us!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry for sullying your precious name with my _notoriety_ ,” I scoffed sarcastically. “I’m only using that name because I married Emmett…I’ll use my own damn name again if it bothers you that much.”

“Oh, stop being so obtuse!” Edward sounded disgusted. “It doesn’t matter what name you use if you’re going to continue to be so _obvious_ Rosalie! You know our kind survives by being inconspicuous. We don’t draw attention to ourselves, and yet here you are playing at becoming a female physicist and prancing about campus flaunting your body and getting your name and photograph in the student newspaper every week!”

“I’m not _flaunting_ anything!” I shouted, moving swiftly to my feet and facing Edward across the room. “So it’s fine for you to do medicine and keep a 4.0, but I’m not allowed to do the same in the sciences because I might attract attention? I should have just stayed in the arts or nursing faculties like all the other girls? Women can do more than that, I can do more than that, and screw you if you think I shouldn’t!” I breathed hard and fought to control my rage. “And this is what I look like Edward. I can’t change it even if I wanted to, which I don’t, and damn you for always trying to define me by it!”

Carlisle moved to stand between Edward and I, a troubled frown on his face. “Rosalie, calm down.”

I crossed my arms sulkily across my chest. “I’ve had enough of his constant criticisms.”

“If you ever listened and thought about anyone but yourself…” Edward began, but stopped as Carlisle frowned at him.

“That’s enough Edward.” He glanced down at the college notice in his hand. “That is a very impressive award Rosalie.”

I shrugged and didn’t answer.

“But I do see what Edward is saying, although I would suggest you could perhaps be a little more tactful Edward…it might get you further,” Carlisle said lightly.

Edward’s scowl now matched my own.

“We do need to try and avoid attention,” Carlisle went on. “We can’t have people looking too closely and noticing things that don’t add up, or there will be questions. Photographs and prizes and standing out…these things are evidence of your existence here and can make things very difficult later on. All these people who know you and will remember you- and you’re memorable enough even when you’re trying not to be Rosalie! - well that can cause trouble in the future if they see you and realise you haven’t changed.”

“So what would you have me do?” I snapped aggressively. “Fail my exams and dress like a nun? Drop the sciences and go back to playing tennis and doing needlework like my parents would have had me do?” It was a sign of just how upset I was that I raised the subject of my human parents.

“No, nothing like that,” Carlisle said soothingly. “Just consider the implications Rosalie, that’s all.”

“Of course I’m _always_ the one at fault,” I muttered bitterly. Without another word to them I turned and stalked from the room, hearing Carlisle sigh and ask Edward for a word.

As was my habit I went out to the garage to sulk, calming myself down in the familiar ritual of cleaning the engine of Emmett’s Kombi. He’d bought it on impulse, without consulting with either Edward or I, and it really was the worst vehicle we’d ever owned. Emmett was absurdly fond of it though and refused to even entertain the thought of trading it in for something better.

“You really should have asked me before you bought this tin can,” I said without turning around when my sharp ears caught the sound of the door. “It’s a complete piece of crap Emmett, and there’s only so much I can do to keep it on the road…oh.” Because the person who entered the garage was not Emmett as I’d expected, but Carlisle.

He smiled at me cheerfully. “You’ll just have to do the best with it you can, and keep trying to talk Emmett into a trade in! I came to ask if you’d care to go out hunting with me?”

I hesitated. I almost never hunted with Carlisle, not since my early newborn days when he’d taught me what I needed to know to keep myself fed. Nowadays he needed to eat less often than the rest of us and almost always went out with Esme. “Sure,” I said finally. “Why not?”

The nearby state forest was not the best hunting ground, and Carlisle and I had to content ourselves with a herd of wild goat. It wasn’t until we’d drunk our fill and were sitting quietly on a rocky outcrop looking across the distant hills that I spoke. “Please tell me you didn’t ask me out here to scold me like an errant child.”

Carlisle chuckled. “I did not. I don’t mean to be an overbearing father, but I’m over three hundred years old Rosalie and sometimes you all seem like such babes in the woods that I can’t help myself.”

I smiled briefly. “But you did want to talk to me.”

“Yes.” Carlisle tapped his chin with a finger. “Not to tell you what to do Rose, because you are a grown woman and can make your own choices, but to ask you to think carefully about your interactions with the human world. Edward spoke too harshly, but he does have your best interests at heart. I don’t think he’s quite moved beyond thinking of you as his baby vampire sister.”

I sighed. “I know the rules Carlisle, but the world is changing and it’s not as easy as it was to find a place in it, living as we do. Being what we are.”

“I understand that,” Carlisle nodded. “I suppose I’ve been watching the world change for so long I have forgotten how overwhelming it can seem. Endless time gives you a peculiar perspective.”

“I will think about what I’m doing more,” I promised. “And I’m sorry I’ve been causing so much trouble,” I added, the apology feeling awkward on my lips.

“I’m not really,” Carlisle grinned. “For your sake Rose, if I had my time again I would have just eased your suffering and let you go after I found you that night. I know that you feel it would have been a better course. But on a purely selfish level I cannot regret that I made you one of us.” He looked at me with the kind of loving affection I seldom saw from anyone but Emmett. “You challenge us Rosalie, and I think that’s a good thing. You’ve pushed us all out into the human world in a way we have not been before, and while that has brought its own difficulties I also believe it has brought with it growth and knowledge. Again, these are good things. I’ve watched you grow, and you make me proud.” He laughed and patted me cheerfully on the shoulder. “You brought us Emmett too, and God bless you for that because I can’t imagine family life with him!”

I couldn’t either. The brief time between my vampire birth and finding my beloved Emmett was a dark period I did not like to think of.

Carlisle rose gracefully to his feet and, ever the gentleman, offered me his hand although of course it was unnecessary. As I stood beside him he looked at me thoughtfully with his clear golden eyes. “I confess I had had hopes for you and Edward…but that wasn’t the only reason I changed you Rosalie. It wasn’t only seeing what those animals did to you at the end either,” he said quietly. “I saw your potential, all that strength and passion and intelligence…You probably weren’t aware of this, but I knew your parents Rosalie. You deserved more than your human life gave you.”

This was more than he had ever said to me of that time, and I stared back at him as I absorbed his words. He smiled at me a little ruefully. “Not that you wouldn’t have made an excellent lady of society…but I confess I find you more interesting as you are.”

We returned to the house as dawn began lighting the sky. Carlisle disappeared into his bedroom to talk to Esme, and I went in search of Emmett. I found him in the living room playing chess with Jasper. Alice and Edward were sitting side by side on the sofa nearby, Alice drawing some new designs and Edward studying an auto magazine. I rubbed my hand across Emmett’s curly hair and sat by Alice, who eagerly began showing me what she was working on.

“You must promise you’ll be my model for the show,” she begged me. “Jasper has said he will as well, and I’m designing most of this for your wardrobe anyway.”

I nodded in agreement, and then caught Edward’s eye. I braced for some murmured sarcasm, but instead he gave me a diffident smile and tentatively held out his magazine. “I’ve been considering this for my next car…what do you think?”

I took the magazine and began reading, and a few moments later we were deep in discussion of the relative merits and faults of the new generations of sports cars. That was how it always went between Edward and I; bitter spats and angry words, and then one of us (usually Edward) would extend an olive branch and we’d go on as before. Brother and sister, sometimes friends. Fortunately he was not the type to bear a grudge, and although I hated to admit it I knew Carlisle was right and Edward did have the family’s best interests at heart.

Some time after this we were once again all engaged in various pursuits in the living room, together and separately. Jasper was reading, Emmett was sitting on one end of the sofa playing his guitar while I lay along the rest with my feet in his lap, half listening to Emmett’s singing and half listening to Alice talk as she worked on embroidering one of her new clothing creations. Esme was sitting beside Alice and sewing as well, while Edward and Carlisle were discussing medicine in low voices over at the table and Esme.

“Nearly done, I think,” Alice announced, tying off a knot and biting the loose thread. “Try it on Rosalie? I need to see it.”

I nodded obligingly and stood up, allowing Alice to strip off my long skirt and t shirt and replace it with her newly made dress, fussing as she pulled it this way and that to get it hanging to her satisfaction.  Stepping back to look at it, she clapped her hands in delight. “It’s perfect! Rosalie, you look like a dream.”

I stepped over to the window, eying my reflection. The dress was long and floating, heavy with embroidery around the hem and neckline and hinting deliciously at the body beneath it. “You’ve outdone yourself Alice, this is brilliant.” I moved, enjoying the feel of the skirts swishing around my legs. “Beautiful.”

Alice bounced on the couch gleefully. “You are such fun to dress up Rosalie!” She crossed over to me and adjusted the dress a little. “It might be better if it’s slightly more fitted here…and you need shoes of course.” She fussed with it for a minute but she began pulling it off my shoulders. “I’ll fix that tiny thing and then it’s yours.”

Emmett blew a kiss at me as I picked up my other clothes, but with a sideways glance at Carlisle and Edward who were studiously ignoring me I simply winked at Emmett and dressed myself again. Alice had no concept of modesty really and was too impatient to have me go somewhere else to undress, and I honestly didn’t care who saw what, but I tried to be at least somewhat considerate of those who found such casual nudity a little uncomfortable. At least, I did when I wasn’t trying to needle Edward, but he’d been quiet and courteous since our last shouting match and I didn’t want to upset that applecart.

Idly I began picking through the junk Emmett always managed to accumulate in the bottom of his guitar case. “You are such a slob sometimes,” I remarked. I sorted out some receipts, some notices, two unopened bill envelopes addressed to Carlisle that Emmett must have pulled out of the mailbox one day, several unfinished school assignments, and then a colourful flier. “Woodstock music and art festival…did you want to go?” I scanned the musician line up. “It sounds good.”

Emmett shrugged. “I thought it would be fun, but it’s outside in August. Too sunny.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Alice said blithely. “It’s going to pour with rain and they’ll play a lot at night…” She shook her head, and then looked at Emmett with an enormous grin spreading over her face. “We’re all going to go!”

“All of us?” I said sceptically, with a glance across at Edward and Carlisle. “Camping?” To be honest, that part of it was not that appealing to me either.

“Yes!” Alice was radiant with excitement. “It’s going to be so much fun!” She grabbed my hands and danced with around the living room. “We’re all going to Woodstock!”

It wasn’t to be quite as simple as that, of course. Emmett cheered and raised his guitar, so it was obvious that he approved. I shrugged, but in the face of Emmett and Alice’s determination I was not going to argue so I was in too. Esme laughingly said she would come along to keep us out of trouble, and then Alice turned to Carlisle.

“And you’ll come too,” she said confidently. “They’ll need a doctor in the first aid tent.”

Carlisle frowned. “I’m not sure Alice. Are you sure it’s a wise decision? It will be very close contact with humans.”

“If you’re concerned about me I can remain here,” Jasper said in clipped tones. He hated admitting any weakness and fought his battles against temptation silently. I suspected only Alice, and probably Edward, knew the full extent of how difficult he found this lifestyle.

“It’s madness for any of us,” Edward said baldly, looking across at Alice. “Really…isn’t it about time you all accepted that you’re not human anymore and that your involvement in the human world must be, by necessity, limited?”

“I think we’re all aware of that Edward,” Jasper said brusquely.

“There’s no need to get testy,” Alice said brightly. “We know to take care, we’re _always_ careful, and this is going to be so much fun! Apart from the mud,” she glanced at me apologetically. “I know you’ll hate that Rosalie, but I can’t do much about it.”

“So you don’t see any danger in this?” Carlisle asked Alice.

“No! At least…not now,” she amended hastily. “Of course things change, you know that nothing is ever set until it happens, but at the moment all I see is that we’re going to have a wonderful time.”

“What about it Edward?” Carlisle turned to him. “I would feel better if you came with us. Your abilities offer a greater degree of safety in these circumstances.”

Edward shook his head in frustration. “Camping in the mud for two days to listen to music I don’t like?”

Alice skipped across to Edward and stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. “You know you’re going to say yes.”

Edward sighed. “Yes, of course I’m going to say yes. Do I ever say no to you, really? I’ll come with you.” He gave a long suffering sigh. “I’ll come along and I’ll listen to what people are thinking, although I still think the entire idea is a bad one. I’ll put my foot down over one thing though…I am not pitching my tent within a hundred yards of Emmett and Rosalie!”

 Determined to blend in at the festival we bought the sort of camping equipment that seven people human people would need, heavy canvas tents that would block the sun completely, sleeping bags, folding chairs. Carlisle even insisted we buy a cooler and he stocked it with food and drink. Emmett loaded all our things into and onto the Kombi, only to have Edward refuse to ride in it. Privately I agreed with Edward and thought Emmett’s beloved van was nothing but an embarrassment, but with only a little grumbling I packed up the tools I anticipated needing to keep it running to and from the festival and prepared to go.

Perhaps most ironically, we bought tickets. That’s the Cullens, always law abiding! Even Alice didn’t see, at that point, that it was going to turn into the most famous free concert ever.

 

“How is it looking out there?”

Emmett dropped the door flap of the tent and stretched out beside me, his knees bent so he would fit, his golden eyes looking luminous in the dim light. “Insane! I’ve never seen so many people in one place. I wish I could get out there.”

I absently stroked his cheek. “It will be sundown soon, then you can go play baby.”

We’d arrived in the predawn half-light that morning and set up our campsite at some distance to the main stage, close by a thickset forest of trees. Carlisle was still uneasy, but Emmett, Jasper and I were happy and laughing, and Alice was nearly hysterical with excitement. We were so confident that we could handle everything…

As the sun came up and the light intensified we had taken refuge in our temporary home, listening to the crowds build outside. Carlisle put on a long sleeved shirt, a hat and his medical gloves and headed over to volunteer at the first aid tent, leaving Esme with Edward, Alice and Jasper in the large tent. Emmett and I had preferred to be together in the smaller tent and had spent most of the day reading and playing Scrabble. By the early evening, listening to the crowd and the music begin, Emmett was starting to get frustrated.

 “It probably wouldn’t even matter with that crowd if they saw me in the light,” he said thoughtfully. “Why do you think I hang out with stoners so much? They see any fucking sparkle or anything out of the ordinary and all they do is mutter ‘duuuude’ at me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’ve been behaving yourself!”

“Oh, always…” Almost lazily, Emmett whipped out a hand and had my book off me. “Don’t read any more. Play with me baby.”

I smirked at him. “More Scrabble? I had no idea you were so into linguistics.”

“Oh, ha ha ha. We can’t all be intellectuals.” He pulled me closer to him and flicked my earlobe with his tongue, his hand at the lacing on the front of my dress. “How about you take this off Rosa girl? Alice makes a pretty dress and all, but you don’t need anything else to make you more beautiful than you already are.” His eyes went dark, and he gave me a lopsided smile. “We’ve got a little while before we can go out, and I’ve got a better way than Scrabble to fill in some time.”

Willingly I slipped out of my clothes and lay with my Emmett, worshipping the big hard body that he shared with me so willingly and eagerly taking the pleasure he gave with such love.

“My Rosa girl,” he murmured, and kissed the top of my head as he breathed in the scent of my hair. “I can never have enough of you.”

I stretched out against him, my face buried in the curve of his shoulder, the taste of his skin on my lips. I didn’t answer him in words, but I found one of his hands and held it, very tight.

“It’s pretty much dark outside now,” Emmett commented, but his earlier anxiousness had vanished and he seemed content to lie together, his hands running along my spine and through my hair. It wasn’t until there was an impatient noise at the tent flap and Alice crawled in that he moved.

“Hey!” Emmett protested, laying a hand across his groin somewhat ineffectually.

“Hey nothing,” Alice said briskly, pushing a pair of jeans at him. “You two must have finished by now- get dressed and get up! Come on Rose, I want you to come with me!”

Dressing in a small tent with Emmett was difficult enough; with Alice there it was impossible. She slipped back out and a few seconds later I joined her, now wearing my dress again. Bare chested, Emmett followed.

“Look at that crowd!” Alice’s eyes were shining. “The atmosphere is amazing…we have to go and join in!”

Jasper and Esme were making their way across to us, Esme looking younger than usual with the flowers and braids I guessed Alice had been responsible for adorning her head. Jasper looked slightly uneasy, but smiled at us readily enough. Edward decided to stay at the campsite, quite content to read and listen to the music from there, and the other four of us walked across the field to join the swirling, intoxicating crowd.

It was extraordinary. The crush of humans all around us, the sound of so many heartbeats and the scent of so much blood was intense, and all of us paused for a minute on the edges to adjust before we ventured further. I don’t know what it was really, the drugs or the dark or the music, but unlike most human gatherings that we walked through, there was a complete absence of fear there. People brushed past my marble skin and didn’t even flinch. I pushed further into the crowd, losing myself in the sensations assaulting every one of my senses, Emmett’s hand gripped in mine. I noticed, without paying much attention, Jasper turn abruptly and push away through the crowd, heading back towards the campsite. Alice, with an apologetic shrug and a worried smile followed him. I don’t know how much longer before Esme turned to me, black eyed and not breathing and whispered, “I must go back…it’s too much Rose!” and fled back to the relative safety of being with Edward and Alice and Jasper. I keep Emmett with me, and he laughed as I danced with him and when it got too much for him he picked me up and crushed me against him, breathed in my hair and kissed me, drowning himself in my touch and feel and scent to block out this most extreme of temptations.

That was how it went at Woodstock, at first. When it was night time, or cloudy or raining I immersed myself in the crowd and the music and the excitement of it. Usually with Emmett and Alice, sometimes Jasper and Esme too, even Edward once or twice. Carlisle stayed busy in the first aid section but came to check on us frequently, concerned about the increasingly disorganised and chaotic nature of the festival happening around us. I didn’t care about any of that, I was pretending to be ordinary, and as I moved among them and spoke to so many of these humans that I didn’t know, dancing and laughing and splashing through the mud, it began to seem like I could become what I was pretending to be. When the sun shone I made my own fun with Emmett, playing games and making slow, lazy love in the sun warmed tent as we waited for the night. Alice braided flowers into my hair, and the two of us held hands and giggled as we danced in the rain. And while her visions told her of the weather and the storm and how Carlisle was going to share all our food and it wouldn’t be wasted after all, she saw nothing of what mattered until it was too late.

I was with her, on the edge of the crowd as she laughed and gulped in clear air to ease the burn of her thirst. “I don’t know how you can be so strong,” she exclaimed. “It’s so hard sometimes…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes went glassy for a moment, and then her face contorted in horror. She seized my hand and ran with her full vampire speed away from the crowds and into the forest near our tents, not caring who saw us, pulling me along in her flying wake, plunging through the trees until we found the boys. Once there, all I could do was scream because things had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

We were standing in a clearing, just a tiny break in the trees, and it was ripe with the scent of human blood. I clamped my senses down against it, hearing Alice moan and cringe against me as she fought her desire for it and did the same, but I could do nothing for her as I stared in terror at what I saw before us. A human body, or at least pieces of a human body, lying in the grass, and the snarling, snapping whirlwind that was Jasper and Emmett as they fought, eyes black with thirst and bright with the frenzy of blood lust.

Edward was already there, his eyes blazing but alone helpless to stop what was happening. “Thank god you’re here,” he shouted, and in a few words sketched out for us what had happened.

The close contact with so much human prey had proved too much for Jasper’s always questionable control, and when he came across this human alone in the forest he had snapped and gone in for the kill. Emmett was with him, and although he had been resisting temptation for a longer time and usually had greater mastery over himself than Jasper, the scent of freshly spilled blood had been his undoing. He had tried to take the human from Jasper and then both of them had turned on each other, all reason gone in the face of the instinctive drive for dominance and blood.

“I need you to help me separate them,” Edward told Alice and me tersely. “Alice, can you handle Jasper? Rose, I need you to help me with Emmett.”

Emmett roared like an enraged bull, and then there was an unearthly scream from Jasper and the sound of rending stone as Emmett tore off his arm. Jasper sank his teeth into Emmett’s thigh before Alice and I, unable to bear watching anymore, dove in beside Edward to stop them.

It didn’t take long. Heedless of the possible danger I threw myself at Emmett who, already off balance from the pain of a bite in his leg, fell with a crash, bringing me down with him. Still blind with thirst he grabbed me in his huge hands, snarling, and for a terrifying moment it wasn’t Emmett with me at all, but those men in the alley who had hurt me so much as they took my life…I let out a thin scream of pure terror and whispered his name like a prayer.

That fear, and that prayer, touched Emmett then as perhaps nothing else could have, and a second later he had me wrapped in his big arms, hands holding me protectively close as he rained kisses on my face. “Oh Rosa girl, beautiful angel, no, no, no, don’t…no one is hurting you. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s just me Rosa, just Emmett… _oh holy fucking shit_ ,” and he pushed me aside and staggered to his feet as he took in what had happened.

Carlisle and Esme arrived on the scene then, taking in the sight of the five of us staring at each other in sick horror, the human body that Jasper and Emmett had fought over spread in a mangled mess of blood soaked pieces before us. Carlisle took in the situation at a glance and took charge, although for once even his preternatural calm was rattled.

“Jasper, if I reattach that arm immediately there’ll be no lasting damage.”

Silently Jasper picked up his own severed arm and handed it to Carlisle who immediately pulled off Jasper’s shirt and tore it in to strips, using them to strap the arm back in place. Jasper grimaced as Carlisle pushed hard into his shoulder socket, and I turned away.

Beside me Emmett was shifting from foot to foot in agitation, mumbling a string of horrified curses under his breath. His hand went again to his bitten leg and he winced, then yanked down his jeans to inspect the damage. Jasper had bitten him high on the thigh and had gone deep, teeth tearing through skin and muscle. The wound wasn’t healing, and even as I looked at it began to seem oddly inflamed.

 “Edward, can you please remove that body? We’ll have to dispose of it. Bury it deep; Esme will help you. Let me know if you find any identification.” Carlisle frowned. He’d had a great deal of experience over the years now in disposing of human bodies when anyone’s control lapsed, and he generally preferred to offer them dignity, a proper burial and closure for family left behind if at all possible. But this mess…well, there would be no peace for the family in seeing how this human had died.

His face set, Edward set about the grisly task with Esme helping him, unable to fully hide her distress. Carlisle tied a final knot in the strapping holding Jasper’s arm in place and moved across to examine Emmett’s leg.

“Why isn’t it healing?” Emmett asked, his voice holding an odd note of pain.

“Vampire bites are different to ordinary wounds,” Carlisle said quietly, probing at Emmett’s leg. “It will heal given time, but it will leave a scar. There’s nothing I can do for it.”

Emmett pulled up his jeans again and looked at me guiltily, before limping towards Jasper. “I’m sorry Jasper. I didn’t mean…fuck man, I’m just so sorry. Carlisle…damnit, I don’t know what I can say.”

Jasper shook his head. “It was my fault Emmett. Carlisle, I know I’ve let you all down again, and I apologise unreservedly. I think it would be for the best if I leave the family once this has been sorted out.”

Alice, Emmett and I began to speak at the same time, but Carlisle held up a hand and shook his head. “Not now. Not here- we need to get home and then we can talk.”

We dismantled our camp in moments and then realised that extricating the Kombi from the festival field was impossible. Emmett wanted to carry it across fields to another road and, despite my feelings for the vehicle, I would have helped him but Edward pointed out the folly of that and the risk of being seen, and Emmett reluctantly conceded he was right. Eventually we just stripped the van and the camp gear of any kind of identification and abandoned it where it was, returning home on foot. Our Woodstock adventure was over.

Edward did not say _I told you so_ when we were all finally gathered at home, sitting silent and shocked in the living room, but we all knew he had warned us against our involvement and been proven right.

Emmett, never one to hold back, raked his hands through his hair and began speaking rapidly. “Look, I’m really, really sorry. Jasper, I feel so fucking awful about this I can’t even tell you. I am so sorry. Carlisle, Esme, I know there’s nothing I can say really. I just feel sick about it all, and…” He was speaking faster and faster in agitation, until I put a hand gently on his arm and kissed his shoulder and he subsided.

Jasper’s face was bleak. “It would never have happened if I could restrain myself.”

“The festival was too much,” Esme said consolingly. “I didn’t handle it well either.”

Alice was twisting her hands unhappily. “I should have known…I’m sorry that I didn’t see anything until it was too late.”

“There’s no point sitting around here with everyone feeling guilty and trying to take all the blame,” I said shortly. “I think we all have regrets about what has happened and things we either did, or didn’t do.”

“Easy for you to say baby doll,” Emmett muttered. “You’ve got more fucking control over yourself than anyone.” I frowned at him and he shrugged. “Just saying.”

Jasper rose and paced along the far wall, hands behind his back, and I was reminded that he had once been a soldier. “It is not only what occurred between Emmett and I. Although…” He paused and looked at Emmett. “You’ve become my brother Emmett, and I offer you my whole hearted apologies. Please don’t trouble yourself any further about my arm, Carlisle knows what he’s doing and it’s healing perfectly well. I am sorry for your leg; judging by my own experience it will take about a week for a vampire bite of that size and depth to heal.” Unconsciously he rubbed the multiple bite scars on his own arms, and resumed his pacing. “I’m starting to believe that this lifestyle is not possible for me,” he said finally, clearly with some difficulty. “My human life involved war and my vampire life, until I met Alice, was nothing but bloodshed and violence. I fear that perhaps it’s not possible to move past that. It is telling that my first reaction to feeling threatened by Emmett was to attempt to kill him.”

“Aww, that doesn’t mean anything,” Emmett protested. “As if Edward hasn’t wanted to kill me a million times since I showed up…as if Rose hasn’t _tried_ to! I’m an ass…it’s a miracle I’m still alive.”

Such typical self-abasement from Emmett, but the good natured humour of it was just what was needed to break the tension and there were smiles and slight chuckles around the room.

Carlisle leaned forward. “Jasper, change is _always_ possible. Always. You have done an admirable job when faced with the very difficult task of overcoming your instincts.”

Jasper impatiently waved his hand. “I fail more often than anyone!”

“Mastery comes with time,” Edward said calmly. “It was harder in the beginning for everyone.”

Esme was holding Carlisle’s hand, her motherly face soft with concern. “Jasper, Edward speaks the truth. It takes time to gain the strength needed to resist, and even longer to gain the experience that allows you to handle situations where the temptation is very great. You and Alice are very new to this.” She smiled lovingly at Carlisle. “I failed so many times in the beginning Jasper, I almost despaired at times. But Carlisle and Edward were always there to help me, and now we’re all here for you.”

Alice stepped lightly across to Jasper and took his hands in hers. “Please my love,” she said tenderly. “Don’t tear yourself apart. I know what you have lived through,” and she dropped a butterfly light kiss on one of the scars on his arm, “but this is different…it’s home Jasper, home and _family._ ”

Jasper’s face bent towards her, the love clear in his eyes. “I know, darling one, but that’s the thing, when I fail I bring danger and risk to all of you.”

She shook her head. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

Carlisle rose to his feet. “Alice is right Jasper. We’re a family, and if that is to mean anything we must forgive each other, and accept forgiveness when it is offered. Our kind do not usually live like this…as a group we are probably the largest outside of Volterra, and what binds us together is very different to their purposes. So please Jasper, let us hear no more of you and Alice leaving, not when I know it is really in your heart to stay.”

Jasper hesitated, and then nodded. “If Emmett can forgive me…”

“Dude, it’s done,” Emmett held out his hands, palms up. “No hard feelings.”

“The Woodstock festival was a mistake,” Edward spoke quietly. “We should not have gone, any of us. I believe we need to remind ourselves that while we exist within the human world, we are _not human._ We can never be, and we would be wise to remember our limits.”

There was a long silence. “I know you’re directing that at me,” I said finally.

Edward didn’t deny it. “It is a matter of what you’re willing to risk, and what you wish to protect,” he said. “This family…as a group we can protect each other to a degree. Life is more interesting and more pleasant when there are more people we do not need to lie to and hide before. But the other side of that is that as a group we are far more noticeable than as individuals. You go out into the world Rosalie, all beauty and brains and perfection and people notice. Then they look further and see Emmett and Alice and everyone, and what was just one anomaly becomes a mystery. Humans don’t like mysteries.”

There was none of the usual biting sarcasm or barely concealed scorn in Edward’s voice, and I bit my lip and nodded slowly as my hand unconsciously stole upward to touch the pendant bearing the Cullen crest I wore around my neck.

“This family we’ve built here is unusual,” Edward went on. “I believe it deserves protection, because it will last when nothing in the human world will.”

Emmett’s arm wrapped around me, and he pulled me closer to him. I glanced across at Carlisle and Esme, Alice and Jasper, and then looked back at Edward. Yes, they _were_ my family. All of them, and I knew then how much I would hate it if anything were to happen to them. We had built this family as a place of acceptance and love and belief in the future, and all of us had grown to depend upon it. Edward was right- nothing in the human world would endure as this family would, and as we sat together in the dawn light, the seven of us still with the mud of Woodstock on feet and hems, I knew I would do anything to protect it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N- Completely fabricated backstory here, although it doesn’t really contradict anything in the actual books as far as I know. Having said that, all the usual disclaimers apply- all the characters etc belong to Stephenie Meyer. The song Emmett sings is Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds (lots of other people too actually, that’s just the version I was listening to at the time I was writing this); the Woodstock festival of 1969 was real, it really did rain a lot and the musicians played a lot at night. I will also add that the original idea of the Cullens at Woodstock came from Growing Up Cullen http://balcarin.livejournal.com/462027.html the most hilarious Twilight fic to ever grace a computer screen. I hope they’ll forgive me for borrowing their joke and making it a whole lot less funny, but I’m hoping this made a good story.


	4. Denali - March

“There’s Jasper,” Emmett nodded towards the airport doors as I leaned across and lifted our suitcase off the luggage carousel.

“Good,” I muttered, as I added another suitcase to our pile. “He can help carry all this stuff…why didn’t you stop me doing so much shopping?”

“Me? Stop you _shopping?_ ” Emmett looked amused as Jasper came over, smiling at us.

“Hello. Good to see you again! How was Europe?”

“European,” Emmett said, basically dismissing our latest three month honeymoon in a word. I rolled my eyes as I collected the last bag and pushed the suitcases at the boys.

Alice was waiting at the car, Carlisle’s Mercedes, all smiles and hugs as we packed the suitcases into the trunk and climbed in. Jasper and Emmett took the front seat and Alice slid into the back with me, bringing my makeup bag with her so she could investigate all my new cosmetics as we took the winding road from the airport to Denali.

“I have missed you so much!” she exclaimed, swiping a dark red lipstick across her lips and making kissy faces at herself in the tiny compact mirror. “I was so pleased when Carlisle suggested this visit to Denali and I saw you’d be back for it.” Alice examined two nail polish jars, selected one, and began painting her nails. “He and Esme have gone on a hunting trip and will be back in a couple of days. Kate and Tanya and Irina are excited to have us all here though.”

“Edward?” I asked softly.

Alice shook her head. “No. He’s still in South America. He calls occasionally, to check in, but he’s…” her voice trailed off. No one quite knew how to describe what Edward had become since leaving Bella Swan behind in Forks several months ago. “Did you and Emmett hear from him at all?”

“Rarely. The last time was weeks ago and even then he didn’t say much.”

Alice nodded. “It’s terrible! Leaving was a dreadful idea- Edward is beyond miserable and I’m sure Bella is too. I’ve tried to tell him…”

“Leave it alone Alice,” Jasper interrupted from the front seat, eyeing Alice in the rear view mirror. “Edward doesn’t want us to interfere. He made his choice and you need to respect that. He’s told you not to look for her.”

“Just because I’m not looking doesn’t mean I don’t _see_ ,” Alice muttered. “If you only knew…” Her voice faded and her eyes took on the familiar glassiness of her visions. Only a second, and then she lurched forward in her seat, grabbing Jasper’s shoulder with desperation. “Turn around!”

“What?” Jasper slowed but didn’t stop. “What’s the matter?”

“She saw something,” I said, staring at her. “What was it Alice?”

“Bella!” I had rarely seen Alice so agitated after a vision. “She jumped!” Her eyes were moving rapidly as she struggled with her visions. “I can’t see her coming up…I need to go! Jasper, turn around!”

Halfway into the front seat now, Alice was tugging on Jasper’s arm, trying to turn the wheel. The car swerved dangerously across the road and I grabbed her roughly and threw her back into the seat beside me. “Talk sense Alice!”

“It’s Bella!” Alice’s eyes were wide and frightened. “I saw her jumping, from a cliff out at the reservation. She didn’t come up Rose…we have to go back to Forks and see what has happened!”

“Bella wouldn’t do that,” Emmett sounded uncertain though, and Alice just shook her head at him furiously.

“Who knows what she might do, without Edward? Jasper, turn around and go back to the airport _right now._ ”

Jasper slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt on the side of the deserted road. “Alice, you _know_ what Edward said. He wants none of us anywhere near Forks, or Bella. We’ve done enough. You promised him Alice.”

“I know I did, but I shouldn’t have!” Alice glared at all of us. “She’s my friend too Jasper! I can’t just ignore what I see. If you won’t come with me I’ll go alone, but I _must_ go. Now, either turn this car around and take me back to the airport to get on an airplane, or I’m going to get out and walk, but one way or another I’m going back to Forks. Now.”

Silently, Jasper turned the car around.

Emmett’s face was creased with concern. “Are you sure Alice?”

Her lips were pressed tightly together. “I’m sure of what I saw Emmett.”

I glanced from one set face to the other. “Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?” Beneath my own shock, I was ashamed to feel a small thread of relief running through my feelings. If Bella Swan was dead, then this conflict ridden, unhappy time in our family history would be over. “Perhaps this will make things easier for Edward, once he knows…”

Alice merely shook her head at me.

“You’re not going to tell him?” I was incredulous. “You have to! Jasper? Emmett? Tell her she has to tell Edward!”

Emmett shrugged and turned away to stare out the window. Jasper gripped the wheel in his hands and kept his eyes on the road. “I promised Edward that I would not get involved. In any way.”

“You’re all mad!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you think he _should_ know? Bella Swan is dead! Perhaps he would go to her funeral or…I don’t know. I don’t know what he’ll do, but he should at least have the option to choose!”

“He didn’t leave a number to contact him,” Alice said unconvincingly.

 “As though that has ever stopped you before!” I scoffed. I sat back in my seat, folding my arms as the airport came into view. “I think you’re wrong about this.”

“Jasper?” Alice said pleadingly.

He touched a hand to her cheek, but shook his head. “I think you should just stay out of it Alice. We said we’d let Edward handle this his way, with no interference.”

“I have to know.” Alice stepped out of the car, Jasper passing her out a credit card and some id. “I love you. I’ll call you.”

Stunned by the turn events had taken since Emmett and I had walked through international arrivals only an hour earlier, I sank back in the seat, alone now. Jasper’s face was set as he once again turned the car and headed towards our friends’ home in Denali.

The arguments over whether Edward should be told of Alice’s vision continued most of the drive home, Jasper steadfastly insisting we stay out it, that it was Edward’s business and nothing to do with the rest of us anymore; me equally insistent that it was Edward’s business, and thus anything we knew he should be told. Emmett, morose over the news in way that Jasper and I were not, refused to even talk about it. I wished fiercely that Carlisle was with us, but there was no way to reach him quickly out in the wilderness.

“At least wait and talk to Alice again!” Jasper exclaimed in exasperation.

“Why? So it’s too late to do anything?” At the house I sat down with Jasper’s laptop and began scrolling through screen and typing furiously. “No way Jasper- we know and Edward needs to know what has happened. He’s out in South America somewhere torturing himself, and he doesn’t need to. It’s over. If you don’t want to do anything, don’t. I’ll find him and tell him myself.”

It didn’t take long to find Edward, not when he wasn’t really trying to hide. He wasn’t answering his cell, but hacking into his credit card account was child’s play, and told me exactly where he was. Only a few phone calls later, I had him on the end of a hotel line and I paused, suddenly not sure how to break this news or what it might do to him. For all the taunts and torments and nit picking arguments, Edward and I had become siblings and I loved him. I thought he needed to know, I thought perhaps knowing that Bella Swan was gone and there was no possibility any longer of anything else, might set him free. I didn’t mean to destroy him.

“Rosalie, what a surprise to hear from you,” Edward sounded anything but surprised. “You and Emmett have returned from Europe then?”

“Yes, we flew in to Alaska today. That’s not why I called though.”

“I didn’t suppose it was,” Edward said dryly. “To what do I owe the honour?” As I searched for the right words and the silence grew longer, Edward spoke again, more gently. “Rose? Is something wrong?”

“Bella Swan…Alice saw a vision of her jumping off a cliff. She’s dead, Edward.” I winced at the bare facts laid out like that, but Edward was over one hundred years old and there was no point in sugar coating anything, when he could see right through me.

The noise on the other end of the phone, a gut wrenching moan torn up from the deepest part of Edward’s soul made me freeze, but when he spoke again his voice was flat and quiet. “Where is Alice?”

“She’s gone to Forks,” I told him. “Carlisle and Esme are hunting, Jasper and Emmett are here with me, but she went back to see. I’m…I’m sorry Edward, I am, but I thought you needed to know.”

The phone went dead, and I slowly replaced the receiver on the charger. Something about this felt very wrong.

I was still standing beside the phone, trying to think what could be done now and why I had such a sick, anxious feeling in my stomach when the phone rang. Automatically I picked it up.

“Rose, I need to talk to Carlisle _now._ ” Alice.

“He’s not here. You know he’s not due back for a day or so.”

“Fine, as soon as he’s back. Look, have you heard anything from Edward?”

One hand twisted in my hair. “I just spoke to him. I called him…I _told_ you he needed to know. So I found him and told him.”

“Why?” Alice sounded agonised. “ _Why_ would you do that, Rosalie?”

“Because Bella Swan is dead and he should know,” I said defensively. “He should know that she’s gone and it’s over and he can start living again.”

“Well, you’re wrong on both counts, though, Rosalie, so that would be a problem, don’t you think?” she asked, her voice dripping with acid.

“She’s alive?” I was truly stunned. “You were wrong?”

“Yes, that’s right. She’s absolutely fine- I was wrong.”

“But what was she _doing?_ Who jumps off cliffs if they’re not trying to die?” I said blankly.

“It’s a long story,” Alice snapped.

“So nothing has really changed then,” I said slowly. “But now Edward thinks she’s dead, and might start living again himself…”

“You’re wrong about that part, too, that’s why I’m calling,” Alice said, and across a million miles of telephone wires I heard the accusation in her voice and my soul shrank away from what I had done.

“Volterra,” I whispered. “Edward wants to die now too, and you saw him going to the Volturi.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I saw.” Alice’s voice was like flint, and she cut off my mumbled words. “It’s a bit late for that, Rose. Save your remorse for someone who believes it.” And with that my sister cut off the phone, and I turned with a horrified face to Emmett and Jasper.

“Rosalie!” Jasper was across the room in one bound, shaking my shoulders. “What have you done?”

Emmett, ever my defender, tore Jasper’s grip off me but the look on his face was nothing I’d ever seen before and I quailed before it.

“I didn’t _mean_ it,” I whispered. “I didn’t _know_ …Bella is fine, Alice was wrong, but Edward believed me and now he’s going to the Volturi.”

Emmett raked his hands through his hair. “He’s going to Volterra? Why?”

“He’ll go to the Volturi and have them kill him,” Jasper said shortly. “I wish Carlisle was here!” He paced the room. “Damn it Rosalie, of all the times for you to be so pig headed and stubborn and sure you know best! Why will you never _listen_ to anyone else, or never even just _think_ before you act?!”

I had no defence. My mind was whirling, trying desperately to see a way clear of this mess. Edward on his way to suicide, my family furious…there was nothing, and I turned away from Jasper and stood by the window hopelessly.

“Well, we can’t just sit here doing nothing!” Emmett said. “We have to stop him.” He crossed to the laptop and flicked it on. “Rose, come here and get me on a flight to Italy.” Numbly I did as he asked, and a moment later he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head around until I was looking up at him bleakly. He stared at me, golden eyes serious, and then shook his head and kissed me hard. “Get _us_ on a plane to Italy,” he said fiercely. “You come with me baby doll. So you fucked up…you’re not the first of us, and it won’t be the last time either. We’ll fix it.”

I couldn’t smile, but I nodded and went back to the computer, scrolling through airline flight lists. Emmett released his grip on my hair and went and stood next to Jasper. “Talk to her like that again and I’ll rip your fucking head off,” he said, sounding almost amiable despite the words. “You’re not one to throw stones Jasper. Not even when someone might deserve them.”

Jasper looked sideways at Emmett and his lip twitched, with a brief flash of amusement. “Understood, my friend,” he replied, his Southern accent surprisingly broad in the short phrase.

Emmett nodded, and turned back to me. “Any luck?”

I shook my head. “Not really. We’ve got a couple of hours wait at best. Either that or take the most indirect route imaginable, which isn’t really going to get us there any faster.”

“Okay then,” Emmett stood behind me, one hand on my shoulder and the other one twisting my hair around his fist. I leaned my head back into him and closed my eyes. “We’ll wait then…maybe we’ll get lucky and hear from Carlisle. You never know. I’ve never been to Volterra and I don’t have any bloody clue where to go once we get there, which might be a problem. Maybe download a map for us, baby doll?”

“I’ve been to Volterra,” I said dully, my eyes still closed. “I know how to find the Volturi once we get there.”

I felt Emmett’s tiny start of surprise. I had never told him of that brief time in Volterra, so long ago. Never even thought of it; forced it from my mind and sworn I would never go back to those menacing underground vaults and those beautiful, hard, red eyed vampires who were my kind, only _not_ my kind at all.

  But now I would go back. For Edward, to make amends for what my arrogant insistence that I knew best had made happen.

I didn’t speak as Emmett and I climbed back into the Mercedes and headed back towards the airport. We would be hours early for our booked flight, but standby was always a possibility. I sat motionless while Emmett drove, every inch of me tensed as I fought my instincts to fly away from the danger of Volterra that loomed ever closer.

We were less than halfway to the airport when the cell phone rang. I snatched it up and read the display. Jasper.

“I’ve spoken to Alice,” he told me quickly. “She wants me to stop you.”

I put the phone on speaker. “Why? Has she seen something? What does she want us to do?”

“She and Bella are on a plane to Italy. They’re going to try and stop him.”

“So we’ll help them,” Emmett said determinedly.

“No,” Jasper’s tone was authoritative. “You can’t. At the moment all we have on our side is time. Edward is planning to ask the Volturi to help him die. That will take time, they’ll think about it, that will take more time…we need enough time for Bella to get to him, so he can see that it was all wrong and she is still alive. If he sees any of us coming he will move up his plans. Do something so that the Volturi will be provoked enough to take him down immediately. And you know he’ll hear us coming Emmett…especially you. He always says he can’t shut your thoughts up.”

Emmett growled in frustration and pulled the car to the side of the road. “So…we do nothing.”

“Nothing,” Jasper affirmed. “Just wait, and hope that Alice and Bella get there in time.” From the tone of his voice, knowing what I knew of the Volturi, I knew that there was little enough reason for hope. Edward would die, and Alice would die and Bella would die and it would all be my fault.

I put my head down on my knees, my eyes shut tight and my hands clamped over my ears. I didn’t realise that I was making noise, a kind of harsh, tearless sobbing, until Emmett lifted me bodily out of my seat and onto his lap, holding me tight against him. Big hands stroked my hair and back and arms as he rocked me and kissed me and murmured gently in my ears. “Hush baby doll, hush. Beautiful girl, don’t do this, you’re okay…I love you. Come on baby, shhh.”

I pushed my face into his chest, trying desperately to control myself. What a joke, decades of perfect, iron control over my senses and abilities and behaviour, always better than everyone else, and yet here I was falling apart on a deserted Alaskan road.

There was Emmett though, with his bold and generous heart, and the love that had buoyed me up for almost my whole vampire life. He held me together and kissed me, and waited until I could breathe and talk and look at him.

“I’ve screwed everything up so badly,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean it Emmett, not at all…but they’re all going to hate me for it.”

“They’ll get over it,” Emmett continued running his hands through my hair, his voice low and comforting. “Everyone screws up sometimes. Once Alice and Bella get Edward back home, it’ll be fine.”

I stared at him. “And when they _don’t_ get Edward back home? When Edward breaks the rules and the Volturi massacre them all?” My voice broke. “You don’t understand what it’s like over there Emmett! This is not a game where we can all just say sorry, my bad, and start all over again tomorrow! There will be no mercy and they will all die and it will be _all my fault._ ”

Emmett pressed his forehead against mine. “Baby doll, I don’t understand. The Volturi…I never knew you were there. When was that? What happened?”

“It was before you,” I said softly. “I was still pretty much a baby, and we weren’t there for long. Wait a minute.” I slipped off his lap and went to our luggage that we’d never taken out of the trunk, digging through my suitcase until I found the small chest I used to keep my jewels in. I took it back to Emmett and dug through it, spilling trinkets and baubles and beautiful things across the seat, until I could prise up the false bottom and extract what I was looking for.

An antique necklace. Elaborate gold filigree set with deep, blood red rubies and sparkling diamonds. Emmett had bought me enough jewels over the years to be aware of their value and his eyes widened as he took in the weight, sheen and feel of the necklace he took in his hands. His fingers traced the symbols worked into the gold. “Bloody hell babe, this is some serious bling you’ve had hiding away.”

I didn’t raise a smile. “Aro gave it to me. That’s the sign of the Volturi there, worked into the gold.”

Emmett ran a finger over the large centre ruby. “It’s pretty damn impressive.”

He handed it back to me, and the weight of it in my hands felt like the guilt weighing down my heart. “Let’s go back,” I said quietly. “Jasper is right; there’s nothing we can do now. If we try we will just make things worse, and I’ve done enough damage already. We just have to hope that Alice and Bella reach Edward in time to stop him, and then get safely out.” I ran my fingers over the gold and leaned my head against Emmett’s shoulder. “Drive us back Emmett, and I’ll tell you about Volterra.” 


	5. Volterra- 1934

The city of Rochester, New York was rocked by the news of yet another brutal slaying. This time it was Royce King II, the son of one of the most prominent banking families who had been killed, in a manner that the police deemed too gruesome to share publicly. How anyone had managed to break into his locked and guarded room was a mystery. Whispers and rumours abounded over the murders, which had begun a short time after the mysterious disappearance of Royce King’s fiancée, the young and beautiful Rosalie Hale. No trace of her had been found, and as one by one her former fiancee’s friends, and then finally her fiancée as well, were brutally killed whispers of a serial killer, and connections between the disappearance and the killers, were talked about in parlours and kitchens and gentlemen’s clubs.

Speculation was rife, but no one came close to guessing the truth. No one who may have happened to observe the quiet doctor and his wife and young brother in law packing up their house and leaving in the dark of night would have thought to question them, or the veiled young lady who was accompanying them. No one would ever know what really happened.

Except us, of course. Carlisle and Esme and Edward all knew what I was doing, each night that I went out. They didn’t know the details until they read them in the press, or Edward walked past one of the police involved in the investigation and heard their thoughts, but they knew where I was going. I knew that Carlisle hated it, I knew that Edward followed me every night in case I needed him, but I ignored both facts and went along my bloody path of revenge, refusing to speak of it to the monsters who had made me one of them.

It wasn’t until I had massacred every single one of the men who had hurt me and led me to what I was now, that I spoke to them. I stood in front of Carlisle in my beautiful but blood spattered wedding dress and glared at him with my iridescent red eyes. “It’s done,” I spat. “Tonight I killed Royce and now they’re all dead and I’m glad. I don’t care what happens to me now.”

I was just a newborn then, fresh from the burning fires of the transformation and full of the most uncontrollable rage and hatred. Carlisle and Esme and Edward tried to make it easier for me. They taught me to hunt, and then I used what they’d taught me to hunt down the men who had brutalised me. They taught me the rules that they lived by, and I screamed and smashed things and shouted at them because I didn’t want this, didn’t want any of this and _I had no choice anymore._

I hated what had happened to me. I hated what I had become, I hated these strangers that I was now forced to rely on for everything. I hated myself, blaming myself for what had happened to me, hating the face and body and beauty that had first attracted the attention of Royce King and had only become more exquisite in my vampire transformation. I controlled my relentless burning thirst because it felt like the only thing I _could_ control in this new world that I had been thrown into.

Once Royce King was dead I went to my room and didn’t move. As the investigation into his death and the ones preceding him intensified and I refused to even speak Carlisle made the decision that we needed to leave New York and booked us tickets on the next boat to Europe.

It was a good idea, I grudgingly admitted that. Away from the familiar surroundings of New York I was not reminded every minute that I had been changed into something I found abhorrent. Esme and Carlisle and even Edward went out of their way to take me to places and show me things that would amuse and interest me, and they spent money like water if it was something that might bring a smile to my face. The poverty of the Depression and the political situation throughout Europe troubled Carlisle a great deal, but I was a spoiled and selfish baby and shut my eyes to anything but my own unhappiness.

We began in Spain, spending time there before moving slowly through France and up to Germany. We spent some time in Bavaria, for the hunting, before we travelled on through Austria and Switzerland, finally landing in Italy.

“I want to go outside,” I said petulantly.

No one moved a muscle in response. Not that I really blamed them. We were in Rome and outside the midday sun shone down on the piazza, the heat reflecting off the stones. I was no more likely to go outside in that than I was to sit down to a steak dinner.

“I’m bored.” I threw myself in a chair and scowled at them.

 Edward didn’t even look up from his book. He was very tired of me by that point. Esme smiled at me sympathetically. “We have tickets for the opera tonight Rosalie. You’ll enjoy that.”

 “Would you like to go down to the hotel library?” Carlisle offered. “I’ll go with you. I’m sure there would be some English language novels there.”

I shrugged, and began pacing irritably around the room. I did not have the inner peace that enabled Carlisle, Esme and Edward to sit tranquilly for hours on end. I wanted to go outside and walk about in that crowd. I wanted to take a carriage ride through those fascinating streets. I wanted to get closer and examine the magnificent European cars I’d always had a completely unladylike interest in. I wanted…oh, always wanting! What was the point though?

I walked past Edward’s chair and accidently-on-purpose kicked the leg of it to jolt his reading. He didn’t say a word, until my third trip around the room when I kicked the chair leg again, only this time I misjudged my still new vampire strength and broke it underneath him. If it hadn’t been for his preternatural reflexes he would have ended up on the floor, as it was he leaped to his feet and glared at me furiously.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I glared back. Stupid know-it-all child.

“I’m older than you,” he pointed out, answering my thoughts once again.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” I hissed. “Stay out of my head!”

Edward rolled his eyes and turned away. “Gladly.”

“Please children,” Esme sighed. “This isn’t necessary.”

Edward pointedly ignored me as he sat down on the other end of the sofa to Carlisle, and I stood by the window, burning with frustration and misery. When the knock on the door sounded I was across the room and opening the door before anyone else had even blinked, so bored was I.

It was a hotel bellboy, bearing some letters in his hand. My sudden appearance startled him, and for a moment he was not able to hide the desire in his face as he looked at me. He covered it quickly and held out the letters to me, stuttering something in Italian as I stared him down.

Snatching the letters from his hand I slammed the door in his face and leaned against it, fighting down the feelings of revulsion that had arisen as the human man looked at me.

“Rosalie,” Carlisle reprimanded mildly. “Your manners…”

“He looked at me,” I muttered sulkily. “You know I hate it when they do that.”

Carlisle diplomatically didn’t point out the obvious- the whole world looked at me and I couldn’t go around slamming doors in everyone’s faces. With a sigh I flipped through the envelopes and then passed them over to him. “These are yours.”

I couldn’t explain to him the way I felt about people looking. I didn’t fully understand it myself. I had learned, harshly and brutally, that sex could be used as a weapon. I understood now, in a way that I had not before, that a beautiful face and voluptuous body could be used to manipulate people and get what I wanted. And I wanted that power for myself; I wanted to control the desire and lust for me I saw in men’s faces and use it for my own ends. But for me the control was so vital- when I dressed up and threw on my cloak of haughty arrogance I would make them look at me and I would feel powerful and still safe, but when I was just Rosalie and someone looked at me and wanted me all it brought was revulsion. Carlisle and Esme did not know how much time I spent in the bathroom, scrubbing that impervious vampire skin in a desperate attempt to feel clean.

I was back at the window when I became aware of an odd quality of silence in the room. I turned around to see Carlisle staring thoughtfully at the sheet of heavy cream stationary in his hand, Esme and Edward turned towards him in concern.

“What is it?” Esme asked uncertainly. “Is it bad news?”

“Not bad news exactly, no,” Carlisle said slowly. “It’s an invitation…Aro would like us to visit the Volturi.”

“An invitation? Or a summons?” Edward said sharply.

Carlisle smiled wryly. “That’s the question Edward, and I’m not entirely sure of the answer.”

“Who is Aro and what is the Volturi?” I demanded.

“The Volturi are a very old, very powerful family of our kind,” Carlisle answered. “They make their home in the city of Volterra, here in Italy. Aro, Caius and Marcus are the leaders and have set themselves up as arbiters of our vampire world. They’ve built around them a kind of…court, perhaps is the best way to describe it? I lived with them for a time in the past, before I went to America…”

I’d stopped listening. “You mean there are _others?_ I’ve been traipsing around Europe for months with no one to talk to except _him_ ,” with a contemptuous wave at Edward, “and all this time there were _others_ like us?”

Carlisle and Esme exchanged glances. “Not exactly like us Rosalie, no.”

“They drink human blood,” Edward clarified, his eyes narrowed.

I barely paused. “Please can we go? I want…” I could not put in to words what I wanted, and as Edward looked at me a brief look of pity flashed across his face and once again my rage burned. “Stay out of my head!”

Edward buried his face in his hands. “I’m trying! It’s not exactly pleasant…” He raised his head and looked imploringly at Carlisle. “I know what you’re thinking. Obviously! But please, take her to Volterra. Leave her there, I don’t care, but please for the love of my sanity do _something_!”

I picked up the closest thing, a crystal vase, and hurled it viciously at Edward. Naturally enough he caught it, and shook his head at me. “I hate you!” I hissed, and then turned on my heel and slammed into my bedroom. Behind me I heard Carlisle sigh.

The shadows were long outside when there was a gentle knock on my door and Esme entered, carrying one of my long, formal gowns. I looked up from where I was sitting on the window seat, my arms wrapped around my legs and my chin resting on my knees, but didn’t say anything.

“The maids have cleaned your dress,” Esme said cheerfully. “I thought you would want this one for the opera tonight. Come and I’ll help you dress and fix your hair.”

Dully, I did as she suggested. My rage had burned itself out, and now I felt once again as though I was drowning in misery. “How do you live with him?” I asked plaintively. “I hate him being in my head so much, I hate that I can have no secrets!”

Esme smiled softly at me. “He tries to give us privacy. It’s not something he can help you know, and he does try not to use what he hears against us.” She brushed my hair and began twisting it into a knot on the back of my head.

“He uses it against me,” I muttered. “He’s horrible to me!”

“The two of you just got off to an awkward start,” Esme said diplomatically. “I can speak to Edward again about being more understanding, and perhaps you could try being kinder Rosalie.” She pushed the final pins into my hair, and added the silver beaded combs from the dressing table. “There you go. You look beautiful darling, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the theatre tonight. And Carlisle has decided to accept Aro’s invitation, to tomorrow we shall travel to Volterra.”

My eyes sparkled. Other people? Well…other vampires, anyway. Someone else besides Edward? “I can’t wait!”

Esme laughed, and waited as I shimmied into the dress she’d bought in. It was beautiful, I did love all the pretty things that had been bought for me in our travels, and I looked at my reflection in satisfaction. She took my arm and led me back to the sitting room where I sat beside Carlisle, already dressed in his theatre going clothes.

“Esme told you we’re going to Volterra?” he asked.

I nodded happily. “Thank you.”

Carlisle’s face wore a faint frown as he looked at me thoughtfully. “It may not be exactly what you’re hoping for Rosalie. The Volturi are not like anything you’ve known before.”

“I just want something new,” I said honestly. “I just want…society, I suppose.” I felt vaguely embarrassed, and angry at the same time for all of them making me feel foolish for wanting what I had always wanted. To be Rosalie Hale, pretty and popular and admired…what was so wrong with that?

Carlisle rose to his feet and offered me his arm with a rueful smile. “Well, I’m sure Aro and his cohorts will be delighted to make your acquaintance. Shall we see if Edward and Esme are ready? I have some business with a jeweller that I must deal with tonight if we are to leave tomorrow, and then we have the theatre. Some hunting too I think…it would be best not to be too thirsty when we are with the Volturi.”

I didn’t think to question further, but went along with Carlisle’s plans willingly, surprised by how much I enjoyed the opera that evening, and smugly pleased with myself when I managed to bring down a meal without making a mess all over my clothes. We drank until we were almost uncomfortably full, and then returned to the hotel to pack up our things and make arrangements for travel to Volterra.

The city on the hill seemed extraordinary to me, as we drove into it. Carlisle seemed perfectly at ease and smiled at my excitement, but beside me Edward grew increasingly tense.

“They live underneath the city?” he asked.

“Yes, for the most part,” Carlisle answered. “Aro, Marcus and Caius seldom leave- they have no need to- and while their guard goes out frequently they always return.”

“How do they eat?” I questioned. “If they don’t leave?”

Carlisle didn’t answer, but Edward threw me an unreadable look. “Perhaps you’ll get to see.”

“I want all three of you to be careful here,” Carlisle said quietly. “The Volturi is complex, and you will not understand the nuances of society here quickly. Remember too, that Aro has a gift like Edward’s- if he touches you he can read your thoughts, so do not lie to him, no matter how minor it seems. It can be pleasant here and they will no doubt be charming, but be wary because things in Volterra are not always what they seem.”

I had been expecting dark, gothic horror with the idea of an underground lair of vampires, but it wasn’t like that at all. A little dark perhaps, but with an imposing and ancient beauty in the intricate carvings and tiled mosaics adorning the walls.

I barely noticed the surroundings though, when I saw them. Vampires. Supernatural beauty and grace and elegance. Not as beautiful as me, not any of them (oh, yes, I was looking!) but I stared around me with an intense, almost frightened wonder.

“Carlisle, my old friend.”

I _was_ afraid, when I first saw him. Aro, the apparent leader, the ancient vampire with skin as pale and fragile as onion skin against his black hair, his red eyes overlaid with a milky film as he came towards us with his hands held out. “How wonderful to see you in Volterra once again! And you’ve brought a coven…three of them.”

“Aro,” Carlisle said courteously. He allowed Aro to take his hands, although rather than shaking them Aro merely held him for a long moment, and then nodded at Carlisle with a smile that I could not read. “I’d like to present my family. My wife, Esme, and Edward and Rosalie.” I did notice the slight emphasis on the word family, and wondered what was behind it.

“Madame,” Aro bent over Esme’s hand and kissed it, then turned to Edward who, in an uncharacteristically rude gesture, kept his hands to himself rather than proffering them in greeting. Aro looked at him speculatively for a moment and then turned his gaze to me. “And Rosalie…why Carlisle, she’s just a baby.”

He took my hands and held them for a beat longer than necessary, as I stared mesmerised into his red eyes. “Lovely,” he murmured. “My, my Carlisle, you have been busy! And all of you continue this fascinating quirk of only drinking from animals! I confess Carlisle, I did not think it possible to maintain, but you all seem in excellent health.”

“Perfectly possible to maintain,” Carlisle said, sounding relaxed. “I’d like to thank you for your kind offer of hospitality here in Volterra, although it won’t be possible for us to stay long. We shall be returning to the States as soon as possible.”

Edward’s fingers, digging hard and unexpectedly into my back stilled my start of surprise, and I kept my face expressionless. Edward never touched me, he knew that I couldn’t bear it, and for him to break this boundary between us indicated to me that something was not quite as it seemed.

“Nonsense, Carlisle! You must stay and allow us to get to know your delightful family. I’ve had your things taken to a suite. I’m sure Marcus and Caius will be fascinated to hear what you’ve made of your life in America, and we are having the Christmas ball…you’ll all want to stay for that.”

Carlisle gave in graciously. “Of course, we shall stay for the ball. Thank you.” He took Esme’s hand with a raised eyebrow. “If you’ll excuse us then, perhaps we shall go and see to our things.”

“Of course. Make yourselves at home!” Aro said expansively. “Your old rooms are available Carlisle, and your things have been placed in there. There shall be a…meal…later on, if any of you care to…”

“No thank you,” Carlisle said, firmly but pleasantly. “We hunted before we came.”

Aro’s eyes held a gleam of amusement as Carlisle turned and began leading Esme and Edward away. I could feel eyes on my back and I hesitated a moment and looked over my shoulder, seeing Aro’s smile widen as he looked at me and the gentlemanly bow of his head. I inclined my head in return and then stepped rapidly after the others.

“Christmas ball?” Esme questioned.

“It amuses them to celebrate the human occasions,” Carlisle said lightly. “It will be very grand, quite splendid really, and something to see. Rosalie, you’ll like it.”

“I’d rather we turned around and left right now,” Edward murmured. “Carlisle, he…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that Edward,” Carlisle interrupted, and so out of character was it for his impeccable manners to fail and allow an interruption that my ears pricked up. “I don’t think we need to discuss anything now…always remember here at Volterra that the walls have ears. We’ll stay for the party and until I can make arrangements for our return to America. That’s all.”

The suite Carlisle showed us too was enormous, and furnished with dark luxury. Brocade wall hangings, dark wooden furniture, enormous four poster beds hung with lace and velvet. As Carlisle and Esme spoke together in low voices I prowled about looking at everything. I was fingering a chess set whose pieces appeared to be carved from precious gemstones when Edward appeared at my shoulder.

“Play a game?” he suggested, picking up the queen and examining the carving.

I shrugged carelessly but sat down to play. He always won, but at least it filled in time. I hadn’t realised at that point that Edward would always win, not only because he was a naturally superior chess player to me, but because he could read all my strategy straight out of my head and see the play several moves ahead.

We played in silence. It wasn’t until Edward had most of my pieces and was removing my captured rook from the board that he spoke up. “Be careful here Rosalie.”

I took a pawn. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said,” Edward murmured. “Be careful. These people are not like Carlisle and Esme.” He took my queen. “Checkmate.”

Game over, I rose from the table and wandered around the room again. Edward replaced the chess pieces and joined Carlisle and Esme’s quiet conversation, and when I realised no one was looking at me I drifted closer to the door, until I could quietly slip out without notice. I didn’t know for sure that they would not like me wandering around the underground maze of Volterra, but I suspected as much and I was tired of being treated like a child.

There was a girl stepping daintily along the hallway outside our rooms. She had long brown hair and a plumply voluptuous figure, and her red eyes gleamed as she smiled at me. She looked slightly older than I was, but I knew that physical age and vampire age were not the same things.

“They told me you were beautiful,” she said happily. “And so you are! I was so hoping to see you.” She took my hands and smiled angelically. “I am Liliana.”

“I’m Rosalie,” I couldn’t but respond to her cheerful friendliness. “Who told you?”

“Oh, everyone’s talking about you being here! Carlisle of course, many of them remember him, but that he brought three others with him. There haven’t been any new vampires here in some time, you know.”

“I didn’t know. Who is ‘they’?” I asked, struggling to understand what was happening here. I glanced behind me uneasily, hoping that Edward and Carlisle and Esme would not hear her and come out.

Liliana smiled again. “Come. You were going to go for a walk? Let me take you. I can show you things, the library and the ladies’ rooms and the ballroom. You’ll be staying for the ball?”

I nodded. “Aro asked Carlisle to stay.”

Liliana led me down the hallway, her soprano voice chattering away as she told me about the Volturi. I learned about the three central figures, Aro and Marcus and Caius, and about the wives and the guard. I learned about those like Liliana, who lived here in a shifting population of people there for the diversion, or because they wanted to be part of the guard, or needed favours from those in power. She introduced me to the vampires we passed, and I learned that those in the dark cloaks were the guards and therefore important, and those dressed in ordinary clothes like Liliana were merely ordinary vampires, and thus less important. She showed me their library, the beautifully decorated ladies’ rooms, the hot baths. Their underground home was a space of extraordinary beauty and riches, a far cry from the simplicity of the life I had been living with Carlisle and Esme and Edward, and I was quite bemused and almost dazzled with all I saw around me.

We ended up in a grand reception area, the walls and arching ceiling inlaid with gold, reflecting the thousands of candles that lit the space. There were three chairs, almost thrones, at one end, occupied by three vampires. Aro I recognised, and I guessed that the other two vampires were Caius and Marcus. Before then stood Carlisle, talking easily, although when he saw me standing in the doorway with Liliana a brief frown flashed across his face.

“Liliana,” Aro cried. “Come here my dear, and bring Rosalie with you. I’m so glad to see the two of you together. Rosalie, lovely one, how are you enjoying the amenities here in Volterra?”

Liliana seemed less sure of herself in Aro’s presence, but I merely raised my head a little higher and stepped gracefully towards them. “It’s beautiful,” I told him sincerely. “I’ve never been to a place so lovely.”

He seemed pleased with my answer. “You’ll enjoy the ball tonight then, I’m sure.”

“Oh yes!” Nothing could obscure my enthusiasm. “I can’t wait. I haven’t been…I mean, since I…” I didn’t know how to finish. What language to use to refer to my human death and vampire change here? The vicious words I’d hurled at Carlisle in fits of rage were definitely not appropriate, but I did not have words that were less inflammatory.

Aro shook his head. “Shame on you, Carlisle, keeping such a lovely baby out of the spotlight and away from all the fun! Never mind dear one, tonight shall be glorious for you.”

There was a noise over to the side, and Aro’s face broke into a grin. “Splendid. I believe the meal has arrived. Carlisle, are you sure I cannot tempt you?”

“Quite sure, thank you,” Carlisle said smoothly. He took my arm with a grip like iron. “Rosalie and I will be going back to our rooms now.”

Aro nodded. “Of course, of course. Plenty more at the ball later.”

Carlisle turned and headed for the exit. I gave Liliana an apologetic smile and wave as he towed me along with him.

“I’ll see you tonight Rosalie!” she called in her high voice, and I saw Aro’s head bend towards her as he spoke in a voice too low for me to hear.

“You’ve been exploring Volterra then?” Carlisle asked lightly.

I tugged against his grip, but it wasn’t until we reached the hallway, out of sight of the reception room, that he released me.

“Yes. That was Liliana, she’s been showing me around.” I nearly had to trot to keep up with Carlisle’s rapid pace. “She wasn’t here when you were here before.”

“No, I didn’t recognise her,” Carlisle said. “The guard tend to be constant, but the others…much more variable.”

“She said some of them know you,” I told him. “They’re talking about us…there haven’t been any new vampires come here to stay for some time.”

“We’re not staying either,” Carlisle said shortly. He pushed me ahead of him into our room, where Edward and Esme were both still sitting.

“Is everything well?” Esme asked anxiously. “Rosalie, we weren’t sure where you had gone.”

“It’s fine,” Carlisle said reassuringly. “Rosalie had just gone for a walk and was making some friends.”

I frowned at Esme. “I’m not a child,” I said crossly. “I don’t need a chaperone everywhere I go.”

Edward’s mouth opened to say something, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Carlisle shake his head with a cautionary frown. I rolled my eyes and turned away from them all, rebellion flaring in my heart. How dare they all treat me like a mindless child!

Edward answered the knock at the door when it came, later on. I didn’t see who it was, but a moment looked up to see Edward holding a large box and staring at me questioningly.

“It’s for Rosalie,” he said slowly, bringing it over to where I sat on the bed. Carlisle and Esme came over, curiosity clear on their faces as I began to open it.

I tore off the lid and gasped. Inside was a dress, but no ordinary dress. Blood red silk, decorated all over with what I first took to be beads, but as I raised the dress from the box and felt the weight and saw the light catch them, I realised were actually diamonds and rubies, small but flawless in their cut and shine.

“Oh my,” Esme breathed.

Carlisle reached into the box and drew out a flat, carved wood jewellery box that had been under the dress. At my nod he opened it, exposing the dull gleam of the filigreed gold necklace, set with even more rubies, large and ornate in their settings lying against black velvet. There was a note, which Carlisle scanned quickly.

“It’s from Aro,” he said quietly, then read the brief lines. “For Rosalie. Something to adorn the newest and most beautiful vampire in Volterra.”

 I reached out to touch the necklace, hardly daring to lay a finger on it. I had grown up with trinkets and jewels, and Carlisle had bought me many more, finer and more valuable than anything I’d had before, but all of it dwindled into insignificance in the face of Aro’s gift.

“It’s a very beautiful gift,” Esme said uncertainly. “But a dress…I’m not sure it’s quite the proper thing, Rosalie.”

“Indeed,” Edward said sceptically. “It is a very beautiful gift. And when Rosalie allows him to dress her up and bedeck her with jewels, what will Aro want in return?”

“I’m not sure you should accept it,” Esme counselled. “Such an expensive present! Carlisle, you know their ways best, is this appropriate? Or is it something else?”

“It’s a gift, not an obligation,” Carlisle said brusquely. He seemed almost angry. “The Volturi’s wealth makes the rest of the world look like paupers, this is likely little more than a trinket to Aro.” He frowned down at it. “It does bear their mark though, which is interesting. It would be impolite to do anything other than accept it in the circumstances, but it’s up to Rosalie what she does with it. Wear what you like, Rose.”

“I want to wear it,” I said possessively. “It’s mine and it’s beautiful.” To be honest I didn’t care about the politics of the gift. Didn’t care, and was too stupid and selfish to even consider them anyway. I wanted to wear that exquisite dress and incomparable necklace, wanted to offset the beauty of my face and body with that sparkling richness. _I want to be the most beautiful vampire here. I want to be something other than Carlisle and Esme and Edward’s burden and regret. I want them to look at me and feel envy. The vampires here don’t know what made me this way…there will be no pity and no disgust. I am not powerless, not dirty, not worthless…I am Rosalie and I am beautiful and I will make Volterra mine._

 I gathered up my new treasures and looked at the three concerned faces mutinously. “I want to wear it,” I repeated. “I want to and I will.” I swept into the adjoining dressing room and slammed the door behind me.

I didn’t ask for Esme’s help to dress, but when the time to prepare for the ball approached I slipped into the new gown alone. Thin straps left my arms and most of my shoulders bare, all the better to display the ornate necklace. It was the most daring dress I’d ever worn, cut low enough in the back to hint at the curve of my rear and with an equal amount of generous cleavage on display at the front. The fabric was cut on the bias and clung to every curve down my body before flaring out into a ruffled train at the bottom, the jewels stitched to it catching the light every time I moved. Yet the dress did not overpower me. On the contrary it seemed as though it was perfectly designed to draw attention to me, to my face and body and hair and beauty, to complement instead of overshadow it. Truly, I was breathtaking, and for a long time I sat in front of the mirror running a brush slowly through my hair as I stared at my own reflection and wondered what the night would bring.

I took Edward’s arm to walk into the ball, because that was the thing to do, but almost immediately one of the vampires I had met earlier with Liliana asked me to dance, and whirled me away. After that, it really was my night. I laughed and flirted and danced, and in return was petted and cossetted and admired as the enchanting music played and the beautiful vampires all around me made this world seem nothing short of magical.

I didn’t know how long it had been before Liliana came up to me and extracted me from my current dancing partner. I giggled as she led me from the dance floor, and she hugged me exuberantly. “Rosalie, you are adorable! I’m so glad you came to Volterra. But now Aro wants you, and that is not a request you can ignore!”

I glanced over to where Aro sat on his throne, watching the festivities with an amused air. Catching my eye he beckoned to me, and smoothing my hair back in place I glided over to him.

“Little one, it’s so delightful to see you enjoying yourself!” he said cheerfully. “And wearing my gifts…but of course I knew you would! Indulge me now dear one, sit a while and let me get to know you.”

There was a padded seat beside his and I sank on to it gracefully, slightly disconcerted to be seated so close to him, and so much lower than the height of his chair. I glanced up at him through lowered eyelashes.

“Thank you for the gifts,” I said. “They’re very beautiful.”

Aro waved an elegant hand. “Just what a beautiful one like you should be wearing, my dear. Now tell me, are you quite content with Carlisle and his coven, and their funny little ways?”

I hesitated for a moment, searching the room for the Cullens. I saw them standing over by the door, in earnest discussion. Edward gestured towards me and I saw Carlisle frown and shake his head. Esme covered her mouth with her hand, and a few seconds later they turned and left. I wondered what was going on.

“They’ve been good to me,” I said at last.

“Well, Carlisle is indeed very… _good_ ,” Aro agreed. “However I’m not sure that you belong with them, pretty one. We do appreciate beauty here in Volterra, and if you would care to stay with us I’m sure we could keep you amused.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead half rose in his chair to wave at someone I couldn’t see, before he sat down and gave me a satisfied smile. “Now Rosalie, the meal is here. I don’t know if you would prefer to leave, as Carlisle and his lovely wife and the boy have done…?”

My mind whirling, thoughts scattering in all directions, I shook my head in confusion. Stay here in Volterra? Leave Carlisle and Esme and their pity? Leave Edward’s exasperation and dislike?

I looked back towards Aro, but my attention was distracted and I didn’t say anything but only stared in fascinated horror at the procession of humanity being led towards the three ruling vampires on their thrones. These people, roped together and walking with glazed eyes…the _meal?_

Aro was watching me. “This is the life of the vampire Rosalie. We are not like Carlisle with his queer ideas and human affectations.”

“But they…” I couldn’t finish. These people were walking towards their death! They must know that! I remembered the men I had killed, the cowering terror and the wretched screaming as they faced their fate...why were these people walking straight into the lair of the monsters with not even a blink?

“They’re glamoured,” Aro said quietly. “Quite willing to lay down their lives for their superiors. Sometimes we bring them in and there is sport, oh that can be fun, but for a ball we prefer the more…civilised method of glamouring them.” He indicated one of the prisoners, and a dark vampire presented him to Aro with a bow.

It was a young man Aro took onto his lap, scarcely past boyhood. He wore breeches but nothing else and although his chest was broad, the tanned skin was smooth and hairless. He made no effort to move or speak as Aro laid him gently across his arm, his head tipped backwards to expose his neck. I could hear his heartbeat and see the artery pulsing just below his skin.

“I do enjoy the young men,” Aro said conversationally, his eyes never leaving mine. Those eyes, his voice…I was nearly hypnotised and could not have looked away even had I wanted to. “The flavour is so distinct, and most satisfying…perhaps you will learn for yourself, pretty one.” Eyes still locked on mine he lowered his head, and I saw the teeth enter the young man’s neck. He drank deeply as I stared, barely breathing, the smell of blood heavy in the air as around me others chose their victims and fed. Aro took his mouth from the man’s neck and smiled at me, and as I saw the blood on his lips the monster of my own thirst howled and my throat burned.

“You would like to try, pretty baby?” he crooned. “Come, share…”

I couldn’t think. I moved towards the youth lying across Aro’s arm, and I sometimes shudder to think how differently it might have happened if Aro had not shifted the human towards me and in doing so let one of the limp arms fall, the human’s hand landing heavily on my thigh. He may have been little more than a boy but the hand was big and masculine and touched me, and suddenly it wasn’t Volterra and I wasn’t safe…I was back in that filthy alley with brutal masculine hands touching me and causing such agony, and all the blood I could smell in the air was my own.

“No!” I physically recoiled. “I don’t want it! Take him away!”  

Aro raised his eyebrows. “Fascinating,” he murmured. He lowered his head and drank again, making even the kill seem elegant as he drained the boy and dropped the body down onto the other side of his seat. “Such control for a baby! I _am_ impressed. Perhaps Carlisle has had more of a plan in his creation of children than he believes…”

I sat beside him, my hands in fists and my fingers digging into my palms, wanting desperately to run, to find someplace quiet and alone and free of all this smell of blood – _oh god, I want it so much_ \- so that I could just _think…._

Aro laid a hand on my head, almost like a benediction. “Run along then my dear, enjoy the party…remember my offer. We would be delighted to keep you here at Volterra pretty one, if you would like that…”

I nodded and mumbled thanks, all my social graces lost in my desperate desire to escape. I wove through the crowd, feeling dizzy and lost amongst the frenzy of feeding going on, and at last made my way into the deserted hall, where I hurried towards our rooms breathing deep gulps of the cold underground air.

“Rosalie!” Carlisle crossed the room to me in a bound and took my arm. Without meaning too I jerked away from his touch and backed against the wall, my eyes wide. He held up his hands so I could see them and approached more slowly. “We’ve been worried.”

I could tell he was trying to look at my eyes, and I realised that they all thought I had joined in the feeding. He thought my eyes would be red now. I raised them to stare at him defiantly, knowing that my eyes would be black but with no trace of red.

“I didn’t drink,” I said flatly. “I wanted to, but I didn’t.”

I don’t know which emotion was greater on Carlisle’s face, shock or relief.

“Those poor people,” Esme whispered. “This place is barbaric! Carlisle, please…let’s just leave!”

He turned and took her in his arms. “Of course, my love. I’m so sorry to have brought you here and had you see that…”

“Aro asked me to stay.” My voice was quiet, but I knew they all heard. “He wants me to stay here in Volterra.”

“Oh please,” Edward rose from where he had been half hidden in the shadows and sneered. “He doesn’t want _you._ ”

“Edward,” Carlisle said warningly, but Edward just shook his head at him.

“No Carlisle, she should know. If she’s going to make a choice…he doesn’t want _you,”_ he repeated to me contemptuously. “You must realise that! He wants your pretty face, and what you’ve had out on display in that dress all night, so that he can whore you out as a prize to the people he _really_ wants, the ones who can be _useful_ to him…”

He got no further, because I screamed in pure fury and flew at him. “Don’t! How dare you say such things to me…”

Edward fought back tooth and nail, but my newborn strength was formidable and it took both Carlisle and Esme using all their strength to haul me away from him. They held me back, still snarling and hissing, as Edward stood panting. As I watched the scratches I’d gouged into his face filled themselves in and disappeared, and he grimaced and shook himself out as the ribs and shoulder I’d crushed and mangled in my fury began to knit themselves back together.

“I hate you,” I whispered, almost too angry to speak. “I hate you…I’m not a whore! Not ever! Just because you think that’s all I’m good for…” My voice choked off, and Edward, no longer angry, gave me an odd look of pity.

“I’m not the one who thinks that, Rosalie,” he said quietly. “Goodness knows I’m not your biggest fan, but you can’t accuse me of not being able to see past your face.” Without saying more he left the room.

Esme tried to comfort me, but I pushed her away. “Don’t. I don’t want…” I sank down onto the sofa and put my head in my hands. How much more confusing could this night become? Or was it even still night? Down here in the vaults of the Volturi it was almost impossible to tell how much time was passing.

“Rosalie,” Carlisle said gently. “I would like to talk to you.”

Numbly I raised my head, both surprised and then reassured to see him smile at me.

“I have something for you,” he continued, holding out to me a small blue drawstring pouch. “It might seem like an odd moment for gift giving, but Esme and I want you to have it.”

Slowly, I took the pouch and opened it. Into my hand dropped a large, heavy pendant, black onyx set in silver and bearing the Cullen crest I had seen a thousand times on Carlisle’s ring and Esme’s bracelet and Edward’s wristband.

Carlisle was watching me carefully. “I had it made for you by a jeweller I know in Rome. I want you to keep it Rosalie, whether you choose to wear it or not. Whatever your choices in this life Rosalie, you will always have a place with the Cullens. Always. Do you understand?”

I nodded slowly.

“We will not try to influence your choice here,” Carlisle said softly. “You can choose to stay in Volterra with our blessing, or you can return home with us. Even if you stay Rosalie, know that you will always be welcome in my home if you wish to come.”

“What Edward said…” I said, looking down at the pendant rather than at Carlisle and Esme. “About what Aro wants…” _Whore you out as a prize…_ the humiliation burned through me.

Carlisle hesitated. “Edward spoke out of turn,” he said finally. “But he does have some insight into Aro’s motives Rosalie, and you would do well to be careful here and think hard about what it is _you_ want.”

Abruptly I stood up and strode from the room. I needed to get away. I headed down the halls until I found a small nook containing a marble statue of an ancient god, where I sat quietly huddled, my chin on my knees and my head resting against the hard marble legs of the statue.

Stay with the Cullens? I was not under any illusions that they particularly liked me. Carlisle felt responsible, and Esme felt sorry for me, and Edward plainly disliked me. Stay with that? But they had been kind, they had tried to make me happy and had asked nothing in return.

Volterra…oh, it was beautiful and fascinating and promised so much fun and amusement! And yet the hidden layers that I knew nothing of, the politics and rules of it that I had yet to learn…could I really stay here? If what Edward said was true?

“Rosalie!” It was Liliana, like me still in her ball gown, smiling as she squeezed in beside me. “I wondered where you had disappeared to! My darling, Aro says you may stay here in Volterra?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Carlisle has been very kind to me, and I’m not sure what Aro really wants me here for.”

“It’s not because you want to stay with that delectable Edward?”

“Ugh, no!” I shuddered. “Never!”

“Do you not like the men?” Liliana’s face was alight with interest. “Here in Volterra that’s not such a troubling thing at all, in the ladies’ rooms sometimes…”

I shook my head. “No! Not that either. It’s just, I haven’t…I don’t…” Once again my words failed me.

Liliana giggled, and kissed me on the cheek. “Rosalie, my sweet virgin baby, you are too, too delicious! Never mind pet, Aro will make sure it’s someone lovely and the girls will teach you all kind of tricks.”

I leaned away from her. So Edward had been right. “So that’s what it is here then?”

Liliana looked surprised. “Of course. Isn’t it everywhere? Unless you have a mate, that makes it all different again.” She patted my arm. “My mate is returning today, he’s been away on business for Aro. Now come on my darling, don’t sit here all alone and pouting…let’s go to the baths.”

Dumbly I allowed her to lead me through the twisting maze of hallways and down to the bathhouse. I had never been naked or bathed with other people before, but I was learning that in the world of Volterra most of the things I knew or believed did not hold true. So I slipped out of the jewelled dress and stepped into the steaming water beside Liliana and wondered bleakly if I would ever find a place in the world that was right for me.

Liliana seemed quite happy to take charge of my aimless self though. She chatted away about Volterra, and the vampires and her mate until it all jumbled together in my mind and all I heard was noise. I let her pull me out of the water and I dressed again in my beautiful beaded gown that suddenly seemed less pretty now that I knew the price I would have to pay for it.

She brushed my hair out until it gleamed in golden ripples down my back, and then I brushed and braided hers. I enjoyed that girlish friendliness and wished for more; but could I stay here for this companionship? I was torn, and the misery settled like a physical weight on my chest.

Liliana took me back up another level and into an unfamiliar area. Her mate, Philippe, would be back very soon and she was more than anxious to be reunited with him. I learned he worked for Aro. “Acquiring things,” Liliana said vaguely. I would have asked more, but there were rapidly approaching footsteps and I looked up to see a new vampire, tall and burly with long fair hair hurrying towards us.

“Lily, thank the gods I’ve found you.”

“Philippe!” she exclaimed happily. “I’m so happy you’re back! You missed the ball, and Rosalie here…”

I may as well have not existed for all the notice he took of me, as he seized her hands.

“Liliana, we have to go. Now! Things went wrong…they don’t know I’m back, I only needed to find you.” His voice was low and desperate, and there was more than a flicker of fear on Liliana’s face as he crushed her to him in a hug. “We cannot wait Lily, I’m sorry but we have to go…”

“Go where?” The voice behind me sent an icy thrill of fear along my spine, and I turned around and then backed hastily out of the way as I saw a terrifying Aro, accompanied by the black cloaked guards approaching.

Philippe froze. “Master Aro.”

“You’ve returned, but it would seem you don’t bring with you what I requested?” Aro’s voice was light. “Disappointing, Philippe.” He held out his hands, and Philippe threw a hunted, frightened look at Liliana.

“It was not possible, Master Aro…”

“Your hands.” Aro’s voice was a cold and inflexible as ice, and as Liliana whimpered Philippe stepped forward like one going to the gallows and laid his hands in Aro’s.

Aro’s face changed, and I bit back a scream as I looked at him and realised exactly what Edward meant when he told me that as a vampire I was _not human_ , not in the least little bit.

“You destroyed it?” Aro said quietly. “You went out to get something I _wanted_ and you _destroyed_ it?” He released Philippe’s hands and the look he gave him was something beyond rage. “We have been watching her for _years_ , I had such _plans,_ and you…” He appeared unable to finish, but pressed his hand to his face. “Jane,” he whispered.

One of the black cloaked guard stepped forward and a moment later Philippe was on the ground, contorted with agony and screaming. I had not believed vampires could feel the kind of pain he was suffering and clapped my hands over my mouth to stop my own scream. Liliana threw herself down on her mate’s writhing body.

“No, oh Aro please don’t! Philippe!”

“Enough,” Aro said said quietly, and as the black cloaked figure turned her face away from Philippe I caught a glimpse of a small, fair girl, almost a child, and my eyes widened. _She_ had caused that pain?

“Please,” Liliana whimpered, looking pleadingly up at Aro. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“Lily,” Philippe put a gentle hand on hers, and looked her with eyes full of love. “Please my darling, don’t…I love you.”

Aro glanced from Liliana’s distraught face to the resigned face of her lover. “You took something from me that I wanted,” he said, his voice like flint. “You destroyed it…I will not tolerate that Philippe, you know that.”

Philippe bowed his head. “I know that Master Aro. But I beg you…”

“No. You took something from me I wanted very much, and now I will take something from you that you want very much. Felix?”

Another cloaked figure stepped forward, a large and imposing man, and I watched in helpless, mounting horror as he kicked at Philippe, sending him skidding across the hall and crashing into the wall, and then grabbed for Liliana. I did not believe what I was seeing as his big hands took hold of my bright and sweet new friend and tore her, literally, limb from limb. It was not until the flames flickered that I understood, and that was when I started screaming.

The pain came seconds later, and as the world turned black my screams became soundless and I fell. This was an agony beyond the men in the alleyway, beyond the burning fires of transformation, beyond anything I had believed possible and, for both seconds and an eternity, I felt it through my whole body and wished to die.

Just as suddenly as it had started, the pain vanished. I opened my eyes, cringing on the floor before Aro, the blond child in her dark cloak standing beside him and looking down at me, her mouth curved in a smile. I could smell the flames, and hear Philippe keening as he mourned his lost love, but nothing registered to me but Aro’s pitiless red eyes on me.

“Take this as a lesson, little one,” he said dispassionately. “The Volturi offer much, and ask little, but you would be wise not to cross those higher than you. I am not a demanding vampire Rosalie, and those who earn my favour are well rewarded…but there will be no mercy for those who break my rules.” He turned away.

I scrambled to my feet and backed away, unable to tear my eyes away from the gruesome sight of the pyre. When I felt a strong hand take mine I nearly screamed again, but then I smelled the familiar scent and heard Edward, whispering hoarsely. “It’s just me, Rosalie. For goodness’ sake, come with me now!”

I looked at him, unable to speak, and as he stared into my eyes I knew he was seeing it all in my mind. His jaw clenched. “Damn it all, I _told_ Carlisle…Rosalie, you have to come with me. Now.” His voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it, and he held my hand almost tenderly. “Please, come away now.”

Once I forced my feet to move I could not get away fast enough, and for once I was even able to keep up with Edward as we flew along the richly ornate hallways of Volterra. I did not see the beauty any longer, and felt only the fear. It was not until we were far, far away from Aro and his guard and those horrible flames that I stopped and, as all the remembered horror came crashing down on me, I opened my mouth in a wordless scream. Edward did not speak then, but simply held me tight in his strong embrace while I shook, and for the first time in a long time I found comfort rather than revulsion in the touch of another.

“I heard you screaming,” he told me quietly, when I was finally still. He did not release me, and from inches away his golden eyes met mine. “We were ready to leave Volterra, Carlisle and Esme and I. We believed you had chosen otherwise and would not come with us, but then I heard you, in my head, I heard you screaming... You must come with us, Rosalie this is not the place for you. Come home with us.”

Numbly, I nodded. Home. Make my home with the Cullens, who had been so kind and shown such forgiveness to me. Not here, not with…I wrenched my mind away from the thought.

Edward pressed his forehead against mine. “We will never be to each other what Carlisle and Esme hoped.”

I shook my head. No, Edward and I would never be that to each other. I could feel his body pressed against mine, one hand against my bare back and the other holding my own hand in his, and it just wasn’t…no. Edward and I would never be together.

“We won’t be to each other what they hoped,” Edward repeated slowly. “But Rosalie…it doesn’t have to be like it has been. We can be something else.”

I met his eyes squarely, and this time there was no judgement or scorn or defensiveness in them, only kindness and even friendliness, and I nodded. “You’ll be my brother…and I’ll be your sister.”

His face creased into a smile. “And we’ll be friends, Rosalie. Friends will be good.”

I smiled back, and for once I let him in to my mind as best I could. Friends would be good…we would try for that.

Carlisle and Esme were waiting in the room, things packed and ready. There was a rush of questions when I appeared, still holding Edward’s hand, but Edward shook his head at them and then they looked at my face and were quiet. Instead they gathered up our belongings and the four of us left Volterra, following Carlisle through the rabbit warren of the underground lair until we emerged in the starlit Italian night. Even then I clung to Edward’s hand, and it was not until we were in a hired auto and leaving the walled city on the hill far behind us that I relaxed enough to let him go. 

As I sat back in my seat I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, and realised I was still wearing Aro’s necklace. With a shudder I tore it off and stuffed it down into the bag at my feet.

“I never want to go back there,” I whispered. “Not ever.”

Carlisle shook his head. “You don’t have to.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the small pouch he had given me earlier, proffering it towards me. “Rosalie? I meant what I said, and meant it on behalf of all of us. You will always have a place in this family, for as long as you want it.”

This time when I took the pouch from him, I withdrew the jewellery and slipped the silver chain around my neck, letting the pendant fall heavy between my breasts. It was beautiful in its own right, but the meaning behind it made it even more precious to me, and I looked from the pendant to the faces around me, Carlisle and Esme and Edward, with a heart too full for words. A place for me, here with them…my family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I hope that worked! I didn’t have any of my books with me, so I was working purely from memory in regards to anything about the Volturi and Volterra- hopefully nothing too glaringly out of place.   
> I really hope people like this section, because I really loved writing it. I love baby Rosalie, and I loved writing her antagonistic relationship with Edward, without Emmett and Alice and Jasper there to smooth things down.   
> I also thought that going back like this shows that Rosalie has grown and changed at least a little bit in the seventy years since she was born a vampire- she’s not a hopeless bitch, she is maturing and learning to be a bit nicer, even if it is a slow process. I also think that S.Meyer never really gave Rosalie enough credit for moving past her human death, as that must have been a completely traumatic and gruesome way to go out and has to have influenced her vampire personality in a major way. To be honest, I never really got S.Meyer’s apparent hate for the pretty girls anyway.


	6. Forks (again)- March

“This is going to go down in history as one of the worst days of your life, isn’t it?” Emmett grinned at me in amusement and I leaned against the side of the car and sighed deeply.

“Probably.”

“Crawling to Edward and Bella…having to _apologise_ …” Emmett went on gleefully, clearly relishing the prospect of watching me squirm. “Having to admit you were wrong…oh baby doll, it just doesn’t get a lot worse than that for you, does it?”

I shoved him hard. “Shut up. It’s going to be bad enough without you going on about it! I fully admit I did the wrong thing and I’m going to apologise to them both. Nothing anyone can say is going to make me feel any worse than I already do.”

“Aww, baby,” Emmett repentantly draped an arm over my shoulder and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll lay off. I know you feel bad, but it all worked out in the end. Edward will probably make you crawl, but he’ll get over it in the end. And Bella’s cool, she won’t be a bitch about it.”

I nodded without speaking, leaning in to Emmett’s reassuring bulk as we waited with the car in the airport parking lot. I knew very well just how lucky we’d been that things had worked out as they had, that Alice and Bella’s journey to Volterra had been successful and that they, and Edward, were now returning home no worse for it.

I took Emmett’s wrist and looked at his watch. “They must have landed by now.”

As if on cue we heard noises from the other end of the parking lot and looked up to see Carlisle, Esme and Jasper with the returned travellers. Alice didn’t look at me and Edward stared through me frostily. Bella, being half carried along between Edward and Esme, looked around with eyes glazed with exhaustion.

“She feels awful.” I heard Esme, dear sweet Esme who hated conflict of any kind in her family, whisper to Edward when she saw him look at me.

“She should.” Ouch. No tone of understanding from Edward there. I shifted slightly and Emmett rubbed a hand against my side.

“Just take it baby doll,” he murmured. “Let him bitch and get it out of his system. Be over quicker that way…I’ve had experience here!”

Bella mumbled something, and Esme gave Edward a pleading look. “Let her make amends. We’ll ride with Alice and Jasper.”

“Please, Edward,” whispered Bella, and although his face looked no more forgiving he sighed and towed her towards our car.

Emmett started the car and then raised his eyebrows at me with a smirk. Taking a deep breath I turned to the backseat where Edward was sitting with Bella cradled against him.

“Edward,” I began.

“I know,” His tone was brusque and not kind. I mentally ran through the thoughts and beliefs that had led to me calling him in South America, knowing he could hear them and hoping that thoughts, rather than my clumsy words, could make him understand.

No such thing to help with Bella. I said her name, hesitantly, and watched her eyelids flicker open. She seemed shocked to have my golden eyes meeting her brown ones. “Yes, Rosalie?”

“I’m so very sorry, Bella. I feel wretched about every part of this, and so grateful that you were brave enough to go save my brother after what I did. Please say you’ll forgive me.” My soul writhed under the humiliation. Oh, I meant every word, no doubt about that, but admitting my faults and failings aloud had never come easy to me and the words sounded stilted and awkward from embarrassment.

“Of course Rosalie,” Bella mumbled, her bleary eyes on mine. “It’s not your fault at all. I’m the one who jumped off the damn cliff. Of course I forgive you.” She was so tired her words ran into one another and she wasn’t even finished speaking before her eyes closed again.

“It doesn’t count until she’s conscious, Rose,” Emmett chuckled and laid a hand on my knee.

“Let her sleep,” Edward said, but his voice was softer now.

She did sleep then, and there was silence for a while before I tried again. “I really _am_ sorry Edward.”

“I know.” He spoke much more evenly now, and I felt some of the tension leave me. “It was a mistake, and I suppose you were not the only one who acted thoughtlessly.”

“No, she wasn’t the only one,” Emmett scowled ferociously at Edward. “Running off on some half assed suicide mission without even saying goodbye? Try that shit again, brother, and there will be trouble. Fucking hell Edward, if we weren’t all so damn glad you’re still alive there would be some ass kicking over this, let me tell you.”

Edward laughed comfortably. “I don’t think you need worry about it Emmett. I have no plans to return to Volterra at any time in the foreseeable future.” He glanced across at me. “Rose? You and Emmett were on your way to Volterra when Alice told you to stay?”

“Tickets bought and paid for,” I said with a shrug. “It was my mistake that sent you there, I couldn’t do _nothing._ ”

He didn’t say anything else, but as Edward caressed Bella Swan’s hair he looked at me and gave a slow and thoughtful nod, and I sat back in my seat feeling relief at what I knew was his forgiveness. Oh, he was still angry over it all, still blamed my arrogance and thoughtlessness for a great deal (and blamed me fairly, I reluctantly acknowledged) but he knew what it had cost me to face the idea of returning to Volterra. My willingness to go showed more remorse than any words I would say ever could, and Edward was satisfied with that.

There was a scene outside the Swan house as Bella was reunited with her obviously furious father. My lip quirked in a smile as Charlie Swan very clearly showed Edward what he thought of him, practically wrestling Bella out of Edward’s arms. Edward caught her as she fell, and carried her in to the house, Charlie still shooting daggers from his eyes at my brother.

“I think I could like Charlie Swan,” I said thoughtfully, and Emmett laughed.

“Glad you didn’t have any kind of overprotective father I had to deal with baby doll.”

I snorted. “Please. Carlisle was the closest thing I had and he was delighted to have you take me off his hands.” I paused. “Well, sort of off his hands…I guess he did keep us both around.”

Edward slid into the back seat. “I think Charlie needs to see me leave. Drop me round the corner and I’ll go back.”

Emmett started the car and moved off smoothly. “I don’t think he’s all that keen on you dude.”

Edward gave a lopsided smile. “Well, no…but in the great scheme of things it’s not a problem I give much thought too.” As Emmett idled the car around the corner, Edward leaned forward and touched Emmett affectionately on the shoulder. “Thank you. I’ll see you both later on.” And he was gone.

Emmett drove us home. In Denali Carlisle and Esme had returned from their hunting trip just after we had received word that Edward, Bella and Alice were all safe. Apologising to our friends for the disrupted visit we had immediately packed our things to return and open up the Forks house, knowing that Edward would not want to part from Bella now. With the dust sheets off the furniture and my clothes back in the closet it felt as though we’d never left. Even the Jeep was still in pieces in the garage, and I made a mental note to purchase a new one for Emmett as soon as I could get in touch with the dealer.

Back at the house Emmett and I joined the others in the living room, listening to Alice fill us in on the happenings in Volterra. It took all my self control not to shudder as I thought of the vampires there, with their judgements and powers of life and death, and I was grateful to be sitting here beside Emmett, his broad chest against my back and his big arms holding me safe.

“So Bella will be one of us one day,” Carlisle said musingly.

“It would seem so,” Alice said tranquilly. “Edward is still being difficult, but it’s really not all about him now.”

“He’ll give in to the inevitable,” Emmett said cheerfully. “He’ll find some way to work it all out to his advantage, too…he’s a crafty bastard when he wants to be.” He kissed my head and smiled. “Bella’s fun…baby vampire Bella is going to be a blast.”

I felt Alice’s eyes on me and looked back at her. “Do you forgive me?” I asked directly.

She sighed and smiled. “Of course. It was a misunderstanding, I know that. I was frightened and angry when I spoke to you on the phone straight after you’d spoken to Edward, and I probably wasn’t at all fair to you.”

“I really thought he should know,” I said quietly. I took in everyone else in the room. “You all know I’ve been against his relationship with Bella, but I need you to believe that I did not find him and tell him she was dead with any sort of vindictive pleasure. I thought he should know, and that’s the truth of it.”

“We believe you Rosalie,” Carlisle said, and Esme nodded at me with a gentle smile. I knew that this whole episode would not be forgotten quickly, but we had eternity…we would move on.

Needing to feel like myself again, I headed out to the garage. I took my laptop and sat with it on the bench, searching out a new Jeep for Emmett. I had just wired a fairly ridiculous amount of money for something I would practically rebuild immediately when Emmett came out in to the garage to join me.

“I’m starting on your new Jeep,” I offered, showing him the images on the web. “I’ve got orders in and it will be delivered within a couple of day I hope. It looks like we’ll be staying here in Forks for a while now, so the Jeep will be handy.”

“Cool,” Emmett looked at the photographs and then shut the laptop and pushed it aside. “I like it in black, it’ll look pretty badass once you’re done with it.” He stood between my legs and pulled me towards him, and I leaned forward and kissed him lightly. From my position sitting up on the bench we were the same height.

“You were good today baby doll,” Emmett murmured against my mouth. “Apologising and all…I know how you hate admitting you’re wrong.”

“Hmmm.” I slid my hands under his shirt and stroked the length of his back. “I’m just glad everyone is prepared to forgive me. Even Bella, I suppose.”

Emmett’s tongue traced over my lip, and I opened my mouth willingly to his. A moment later he broke away and looked at me with a crooked smile. “You weren’t the only one at fault, angel girl.” His hands caught in my hair and he moved my head back towards his, kissing me deeply once again. “My beautiful girl…I love you.”

I pressed closer to him, and once again nothing mattered but him, and the two of us being together. The rest of the world could do what it would, but for Emmett and I right then there was nothing but the pleasure of being in love and being together.

Hours later I heard Edward calling everyone. Emmett and I had been playing x-box (such a human obsession of his!) and I was happy enough to toss aside my controller and go see what he wanted. As I descended the stairs, Emmett’s hand in mine, I smelt the unmistakeable human scent of Bella.

We gathered in the dining room, taking our seats around the table, an action which clearly indicated the seriousness of the situation. I caught Bella looking at me doubtfully, and I did my best to smile at her.

Carlisle, seated on one side of Bella, nodded at her. “The floor is yours.”

“Well, I’m hoping Alice has already told you everything that happened in Volterra?”

“Everything,” Alice said. She had a smug smile on her face- clearly her sight had told her what this was all about. I glanced across at Edward, whose face was stern.

“So, I have a problem,” Bella went on. “Alice promised the Volturi that I would become one of you. They’re going to send someone to check, and I’m sure that’s a bad thing- something to avoid. And so, now, this involves you all. But, if you don’t want me, then I’m not going to force myself on you, whether Alice is willing or not.” Bella held up a hand to stop anyone interrupting. “Please, let me finish. You all know what I want. And I’m sure you know what Edward thinks, too. I think only fair way to decide is for everyone to have a vote. If you decide you don’t want me, then…I guess I’ll go back to Italy alone. I can’t have _them_ coming _here.”_

There was a rumble of anger from Edward, and I raised my eyebrows at Emmett. She would go back to Volterra, alone, in order to spare us retribution?

“Taking into account, then, that I won’t put any of you in danger either way, I want you to vote yes or no on the issue of me becoming a vampire.” She gave a half smile and looked towards Carlisle.

“Just a minute,” Edward said. “I have something to add before we vote.” He clasped his hands together on the table top. “About the danger Bella’s referring to,” he went on, “I don’t think we need to be overly anxious. You see, there was more than one reason why I didn’t want to shake Aro’s hand there at the end. There’s something they didn’t think of, and I didn’t want to clue them in. The Volturi are overconfident, and with good reason. When they decide to find someone, it’s not really a problem. Do you remember Demetri?”

Bella clearly did remember, because she shuddered. My own memories of Aro’s guards rose in my mind and I bit my lip, wondering what Bella had seen.

“Now the whole time we were with any of them, I was picking their brains for anything that might save us, getting as much information as possible. So I saw how Demetri’s talent works. He’s a tracker- a tracker a thousand time more gifted than James was. His ability loosely related to what I do, or what Aro does. He catches the …flavour? I don’t know how to describe it…the tenor…of someone’s mind, and then he follows that. It works over immense distances. But after Aro’s little experiments, well…” Edward shrugged.

“You think he won’t be able to find me,” Bella said flatly.

Edward nodded smugly. “I’m sure of it. He relies totally on that other sense. When it doesn’t work with you, they’ll all be blind.”

“And how does that solve anything?” Bella’s voice was sceptical.

“Quite obviously, Alice will be able to tell when they’re planning a visit, and I’ll hide you. They’ll be helpless. It will be like looking for a piece of straw in a haystack!” He glanced across at Emmett, and the two of them smirked at each other, clearly enjoying the plan.

“But they can find you,” Bella argued.

“And I can take care of myself.”

Emmett laughed, and he and Edward fist bumped each other. “Excellent plan, my brother.”

I was furious with Emmett’s cavalier attitude to risk, and hissed “No!”

“Absolutely not,” Bella added, and for the first time the two of us eyed each other in complete agreement over something.

“Nice,” Jasper said, happy to join in with the other boys’ plans.

“Idiots,” Alice muttered, and I rolled my eyes. Bloody _boys_! Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having another girl around if Bella had her way. Alice and I could use another sister on our side.

Bella breathed deeply and sat up straight. “All right then. Edward has offered an alternative for you to consider. Let’s vote.” I could tell she was trying to appear calm, as she looked towards Edward. “Do you want me to join your family?”

Edward’s eyes were dark and he set his mouth obstinately. “Not that way. You’re staying human.”

“Alice?”

Alice hardly let her finish speaking. “Yes.”

“Jasper?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. I was not surprised, but I caught the flash of surprise in Bella’s face. She was very easy to read. She had not been sure of Jasper at all, but I knew he didn’t mind Bella. I also knew that _not_ wanting to kill her and drain her body of blood every second he was around her would be a relief for him.

Bella looked at me, no doubt wishing that I would have no part of deciding her fate. She’d known my feelings. “Rosalie?”

I bit my lip but could not, in the end, say anything but the truth. “No.”

She was not surprised and moved her eyes towards Emmett, but I was trying to make amends for my mistakes that had led them to Volterra in the first place, and I did not want her to misunderstand my feelings.

“Let me explain,” I said slowly, holding up my hands. “I don’t mean that I have any aversion to you as a sister. It’s just that…this is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me.”

I don’t think she understood, not really- how could an eighteen year old human girl really understand the concept of immortality?- but she nodded at me without rancour and turned to Emmett.

He grinned at her happily. “Hell, yes! We can find some other way to pick a fight with this Demetri.”

I crossed my arms and scowled at him, but he didn’t look at me as Bella smiled back at him and moved on to Esme.

“Yes, of course, Bella. I already think of you as part of my family.”

Carlisle was the last one, and he did not answer Bella directly at first. Instead he looked at Edward, and gently said his name.

“No,” Edward growled, and his smooth face twisted with anger.

“It’s the only way that makes sense,” Carlisle said. “You’ve chosen not to live without her, and that doesn’t leave me a choice.”

Edward stalked out of the room, furious, and there was a crash from the living room as he vented his rage on some hapless object.

“I guess you know my vote,” Carlisle sighed.

“That’s all I needed to know,” Bella spoke quickly. “Thank you. For wanting to keep me. I feel exactly the same way about all of you too.” She seemed to be fighting back tears, and I watched, expressionless, as Esme and Alice embraced her.

In the end, my vote had not mattered. I noted the irony of the fact that the person who loved Bella most and the one who liked her least had both voted against her transformation, and rose from the table and pushed out of the room as Bella, Edward and Alice began shouting at each other about the how and when of Bella’s transformation. That part of it mattered little to me; now or after graduation or three years from now…either way, Bella was giving up her human life and there was nothing I could possibly to do to make her see how much she was throwing away.

I went up to my room to think, but when I saw Edward and Bella leave and Emmett had not come up I went in search of him. He was not in the house, and only when I went outside to look for him did I hear the cracks of thunder breaking regularly across the mountains. I looked up at the clear, starlit sky and realised that it wasn’t thunder.

Emmett was standing on the edge of the baseball field, tossing balls up into the air and then swinging the bat at them furiously. Behind him was a bag of balls, and four broken bats, including the custom made purple one he’d given me for Christmas, lay at his feet. As I watched him he hit another one, sending the ball whistling into the forest as the bat cracked in two. He tossed the pieces down with the others, and picked up the last intact bat and a new ball, all without looking at me or acknowledging me in any way.

“They’ll be hearing you all across the valley,” I said quietly. “And you’re breaking all the bats.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Emmett’s voice was flat, and he still didn’t look at me. He tossed another ball up, hit it with a crack that echoed across the mountains, and watched it disappear into the trees before he reached for another one.

“What is it?” I asked uncertainly. “Are you okay?” I did not think I had ever seen Emmett like this.

“Oh yeah, I’m great, just fucking wonderful…” He turned to me suddenly, his eyes so full of raw grief that I took a step back.

“What?”

“I have loved you for seventy years and yet y _ou still wish there had been someone to vote no for you?!”_ he shouted at me. “Seventy fucking years Rosalie! I have given you everything I have, everything I am, and it’s not enough? You still think that something else would be better? Well _fuck you_!”

I felt like he had hit me. “No, Emmett, no, it’s not like that…”

“Then what is it like?” He was still shouting, and the baseball bat in his hand cracked under the pressure of his grip. “I just can’t…I love you Rosa, have always loved you in some crazy fucking way that makes it so there’s nothing in this world or beyond that matters more to me than you. From the first time I laid eyes on you you’ve been my whole damn _world_ and I _love you_ and yet you _regret_ it…”

He turned and viciously hurled the broken baseball bat across the field, where it crashed in to the trees and disappeared. He did not turn back to look at me, and when he spoke again his voice was so soft I could barely hear it. “I gave you my heart Rosalie, I did everything I could to make you happy, but it isn’t enough. It’s never been enough, and I don’t know what else to do.”

I could not speak. That I could hurt him, hurt my beloved Emmett like this? Oh, it was unbearable! I felt my eyes burn as he dropped to the ground in a crouch, his head in his hands. I stumbled over to him and knelt at his side, my hand on his back that felt as cold and rigid as marble.

“Not enough for me?” I whispered. “Emmett, you are more than enough for me, you always have been…I don’t deserve you and I know you deserve so much better than me. You make me whole Emmett. I don’t know how to be, without you…I can’t bear that I have hurt you like this…” My voice faltered, and I shut my eyes and pressed my face into his shoulder.

I felt him turn to face me, gentle hands on the side of my face, and then he gave a start. “Fuck Rosalie, you’re _crying…”_ He traced a finger under my burning eye and as I stared at him in shock I saw that it was smeared with what looked like blood. “Fucking hell, I didn’t even know we could do that.”

I hadn’t either. I could imagine what I looked like with blood tears smeared across my face, but for once I didn’t give my looks another thought. What did it matter what I looked like, if I could not heal this hurt I had inflicted on my beloved so carelessly? And how could I not cry, when the knowledge that I had hurt my Emmett tore through me, leaving a pain worse than transformation, worse than Jane in Volterra, worse than death?

“If I’m crying it’s because I hurt you and I can’t stand it,” I said fiercely. “You are everything to me Emmett, e _verything._ ” I caught my hair in my fists and tugged on it distractedly. “Everything I said about Bella, and voting no…that had nothing to do with how I feel about you, and me, and what we have together. It’s about everything she will miss not being human, everything we don’t have and I can’t give you because I’m a vampire and not a human woman.”

Emmett shook his head. “But if you were still human, if you hadn’t died, there would never have been any ‘us’ Rosa.”

“No, I can’t accept that Emmett. This, what we have between us, it is bigger than anything…”

“No,” Emmett’s voice was firm. “Think about it Rosalie. You would have been some rich society bitch in New York and I would have been a farmer or hunter down in Tennessee…do you really think you would have given the time of day to some backwoods gambler and womaniser from Appalachia? Really? Even someone as handsome and godlike as me?” He laughed shakily at his own joke. “Not a chance. It’s only because of Carlisle, because of this whole vampire deal that there is any ‘us’ at all…and fucking hell I love it Rosa, because I love you. I don’t even want to waste my time imagining a world without you in it, because I know it would suck.”

“I am so, so sorry I hurt you with what I said.” I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him until he was sitting in the grass, and then I straddled his thighs to sit facing him, my body touching his lightly all along my torso, my hands still on his shoulders, my neck arched to look up at him. “I would go to Volterra myself and ask them to destroy me a thousand times before I would see you sad Emmett, you must believe that.”

He looked into my eyes and nodded, and then crushed his mouth against mine. Nothing gentle this time, just fierce lust and claiming what was his. “This,” he said hoarsely a minute later. “This I believe in, Rosa. This reality of you and me and what we are when we’re together. I’m not…not good with words. You know that by now- all that romance and poetry and soul deep shit that Edward goes on about, it’s not me.”

I couldn’t help my sudden, surprised laugh, and Emmett grinned at me and I knew we would be okay together.

“Let me finish! I’m trying here…” he chuckled, and kissed me again. “I’m not like that Rosa, but you know what I feel for you. You _know_. I love you. I love you for being smart and beautiful and for being a badass bitch who fixes my car and makes me laugh and fucks me fifty ways to Sunday. I love you for saving my life by making Carlisle give me a new life, and I love that you’ve stayed by my side despite the fact that I’m just some boneheaded vampire you happened to come across in the woods. I love you when you’re happy and I love you when you’re mad and I love you when you’re being a bitch and when you’re scared and when you’ve got me by the balls and when you’re being sweet and when you’re fighting…hell baby doll, I can’t even tell you all the ways I love you. And it gutted me to think that I don’t make you as happy as you make me.”

I pressed my lips to his for a long moment. “I’m not that great with words either,” I looked into his eyes and slid my hands down his belly, going low enough to make him gasp, and then I laughed again and bit teasingly at his lower lip. “The truth of it is, simply, that there _wasn’t_ anyone to vote no for me. So here I am, and here you are, and I promise you Emmett, right now I don’t want anything different.”

I twined my arms around further around him and grabbed his hair to make him look at me. “We’ve had seventy years Emmett and it’s been wonderful, but it’s only a moment in the fullness of forever. So there wasn’t anyone to vote no for me, and maybe I wouldn’t have chosen this if I’d had a choice, but it is what it is and damned if I will lose you, the one thing that makes it all worthwhile for me. So I’m going to want you always, need you always, but most of all _love_ you always Emmett.”

He nodded at me. “I’ve said it to you before, I think…but I don’t buy into all that fairy tale romance and star crossed lover bullshit. What I believe in is what we have…you and me, and what we are when we’re together. Two people who were lucky enough to find each other and build something together and make it work. Love that makes us better than what we might have been individually. Love that makes us happy Rosa girl. You’re my world, not because I can’t live without you in it, but because you make it better when you are there. And that’s more than enough for me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It felt weird to write Bella in this section, even though most of her dialogue was just a straight lift from the book. I never write Bella!   
> So that’s it, the end of New Moon according to Rosalie. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the writing, and a big thanks to those who took the time to review- I appreciate it a lot.


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